It's nothing new for women to be politically active — women's turnout rate has outstripped men's in every presidential election since 1980, and in every midterm election since 1986. (In terms of raw numbers, women have outvoted men in every national election since at least 1964. These days, that gap is several million every election year.)
In that sense, every year is the "year of the woman."
But in 2018, polls show women have swung even more Democratic than usual, while men remain nearly evenly split, or leaning slightly Republican. According to an NPR analysis of recent likely-voter polls, this year's gender gap could be even bigger than those in 2014 and 2016, with women far more Democratic than in either of those years.
That larger gap may be here to stay, Matthews says, in part because it's inseparable from other longer-term political trends.
"Whereas the Republican Party used to primarily be comprised of college educated voters, college educated voters — particularly college educated women — have been becoming more Democratic," Matthews said. "What happened is the 2016 election sped that up."Right. When the Democrats nominated the first woman to head a presidential ticket, Republicans responded by choosing a moronic, unfit, misogynist pig to show the bitches who's boss. So yeah, it's been sped up. But it's been coming for a while as you can see from the charts. The antediluvian all-male power structure is being challenged everywhere. In the West, it's all wrapped up in white nationalism. Elsewhere it's just patriarchy and traditional authoritarian values. But it's all about a fundamental change in the way humans organize themselves.
New Quinnipiac poll: 42% of American voters say confirm Kavanaugh; 48% say don't
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) October 1, 2018
WOMEN: 55-37% oppose him
MEN: 49-40% support him
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48% believe Ford
41% believe Kavanaugh