MSNBC data reporter Steve Kornacki said Tuesday that Vice President Kamala Harris is not replicating President Joe Biden’s “gender gap” advantage from 2020 in the 2024 election.
Former president Donald Trump trails Harris by 1.5% in a national head-to-head matchup, according to the RealClearPolling average of polls from July 31 to Aug. 18, with the gap remaining the same when independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein and independent candidate Cornel West are included in the surveys. Kornacki said that when one added Trump’s lead among men and Harris’ lead among women, it was “normal.”
WATCH:
Steve Kornacki Says Kamala Harris Not Blowing Trump Away With ‘Gender Gap’ pic.twitter.com/SpyiNTySe8
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 20, 2024
“The gender gap has been a staple of American politics starting in the 1980 election. So, keeping that in mind, what you see here are a bunch of numbers. This is looking at men, specifically, and what you’re seeing, take you through this, in the 2020 election, Donald Trump, an average of all of the sort of post-election surveys, Donald Trump carried the men’s vote by five points over Joe Biden in 2020,” Kornacki told MSNBC host Chris Jansing. “Now, in the months before Joe Biden dropped out, when he was still the Democratic candidate, Trump had been leading Biden by 12 points among men and now in the months since Kamala Harris came in and replaced Biden, that’s what you’re seeing down here, on average Trump is winning men by seven points. So from Trump plus 12 to Trump plus seven, Harris has actually, in the months she’s been the candidate, this gap has come down for Democrats among men by five points, but still a Trump advantage there of seven.”
“Now, take a look at women. Again, in 2020, Biden carried women by 13 points over Trump. Just before he dropped out, Biden was still winning women, but look, the margin was down to five points,” Kornacki continued. “Harris now enters the race and you can see she’s improved that for Democrats. She’s now leading by nine among women. Trump on average, by seven among men. Harris on average, by nine among women. Currently, that is a 16-point gender gap. Now, that’s big but that’s normal. It was 23, excuse me, it was 18 points on average in the 2020 election. So it’s really consistent with what we saw in 2020. Big, but not necessarily new.”
Biden endorsed Harris as his replacement on the Democratic ticket July 21 after he announced the end of his reelection bid. (RELATED: ‘You Don’t Quite See That’: MSNBC Data Guru Delivers Brutal Reality Check To Dems After Walz Pick)
At the time Biden ended his reelection bid, Trump led Biden by 3.1% in a national head-to-head matchup, according to the RealClearPolling average of polls, with Trump’s lead expanding to 4.2% when Stein, Kennedy and West were included as options.
Featured Image Credit: Benjamin Chelnitsky
