National poll says ‘whiteness and masculinity’ aren’t enough to get Donald Trump past Kamala Harris

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New polling from Fairleigh Dickinson University explores race and gender in the presidential race, and those factors are playing against GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.

“Trump has built his political career around a very specific performance of whiteness and masculinity,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson, and the Executive Director of the poll. “In the past, that’s been seen as a strength, but it’s no longer clear that it’s working.”

The FDU poll shows Kamala Harris ahead 50% to 43% with likely voters nationally, but the real novelty in this survey is its test of whether gender and race matter.

A third of respondents were asked if they considered “The Race or Ethnicity of the Candidate,” and another third were given “Whether the Candidate is a Man or a Woman.” The remainder got no questions along those lines.

“Among voters who were not primed to think about the race or sex of the candidates, Harris and Trump are tied (47 to 48). When the list of issues mentions the sex of the candidates, Harris pulls ahead, 52 to 42. And when the race of the candidates is mentioned, Harris holds a 14-point lead, 53 to 39, a 15-point shift from the baseline condition,” FDU notes.

For Cassino, these findings have profound implications.

“When voters are thinking about race or sex, Trump’s support just plummets,” said Cassino. “All the time, we hear strategists and pundits saying that Democratic candidates shouldn’t talk about identity, but these results show that making race and sex salient to voters is bad for Trump and boosts Harris.”

That boost is significant indeed.

Without the question that “primes” the response, Harris is up 55% to 39% with non-white voters. But when race is mentioned, Harris’ lead grows to 65% to 29% with the same group.

“Race matters in elections, but it’s not inevitable that voters are thinking about it,” said Cassino. “Trump does reasonably well among non-white voters so long as they’re not thinking about race: once they are, we see a huge shift to Harris.”

The same effect happens with white voters.

“In the unprimed condition, Trump leads Harris among white voters by 11 points, 53 to 42. In the race primed condition, the two are tied, with Harris marginally ahead among white voters, 47 to 44.”

A similar phenomenon is in play regarding gender and its effect on voters.

“Mentioning the sex of the candidates has no real effect on men’s votes: it increases support for Harris by 5 points and reduces support for Trump by 2. But among women, mentioning the sex of the candidates drops Trump’s support by 7, from 40 percent in the unprimed condition to 33 percent in the gender primed condition. The net effect is a change from women favoring Harris by 16 (56 to 40) in the unprimed condition, to favoring her by 26 (59 to 33) in the gender primed condition,” FDU notes.

Additionally, pollsters find that “a little more than half of men say that they’re ‘completely masculine,’ and a little less than half describe themselves some other way (as ‘mostly masculine,’ ‘slightly masculine’ or in one of the feminine categories). The men who put themselves in the ‘completely masculine’ category favor Trump over Harris by a wide margin, 64 to 30. All other men favor Harris by a 20-point margin, 55 to 35.”

“We talk about the gender gap in voting as being between men and women,” said Cassino. “But it’s not. The real gender gap is between men who are holding to traditionally masculine identities, and everybody else. Identity isn’t just about race and sex: Trump’s appeal to a traditional form of masculine identity is the only thing keeping this race close.”