One more confounding variable

From Democrats and Republicans aren’t divided by gender, they’re divided by marriage by Conn Carroll.

What would it look like if a major publication decided to produce a feature on masculinity but then assigned all the articles to women?

Well, it would look a lot like Politico’s The Masculinity Issue, which did exactly that.

Politico’s aversion to asking men to write about masculinity aside, one theme throughout the feature was that, in Katelynn Fossett’s words, over the last few decades, “women are voting for Democrats more, and men are usually sticking with Republicans.”

And when you look at just the top-line numbers, that appears to be true. In 2022 House races, men nationally favored the GOP by 14 points (56% Republican to 42% Democrat), while women favored Democrats by 8 points (53% Democrat to 45% Republican).

But drill a little deeper, and the picture becomes a little more complicated.

Adding marital status to the mix, the GOP advantage among married men shoots up to 20 points (59% Republican to 39% Democrat) and shrinks among unmarried men to just 7 points (52% Republican to 45% Democrat).

But what most people don’t know, including everyone who works at Politico apparently, is that among married women, Republicans still maintain a sizable 14-point advantage (56% Republican to 42% Democrat).

But if Republicans are winning married men by 20 points, married women by 14 points, and unmarried men by 7 points, then who is keeping Democrats competitive?

Single women are single-handedly saving the Democratic Party. By a 37-point margin (68% to 31%), single women overwhelmingly pulled the lever for Democrats.