Voter Behavior and the Gender Gap in Twenty-First Century Minnesota snd Wisconsin

Abstract

Campaign strategists, political scientists, and political pundits gave more attention to differences in the way men and women voted in the last two decades of the twentieth century than ever before. With this increased attention came the coining of the term “gender gap,” which measures differences in the voting behavior of the sexes. The gender gap reached an all time national high in the 1996 election of President Bill Clinton. This paper explores whether or not the gender gap remained significant into the twenty-first century in Minnesota and Wisconsin. This paper concludes that the variables of issue importance, race, religion, income, size and type of city resided in, marital status, education, and age of voters all proved to be more significant variables in terms of predicting voter behavior in at least one election, and often times in all elections considered. This paper also considers among which subgroups the sexes differed the most. The majority of the analysis in this paper is based off data collected by Voter News Services.