The gender gap widens in the Harris-Trump contest: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill.

In today’s edition, senior political editor Mark Murray breaks down the widening gender gap in polls of the contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Plus, we report on how VP contender and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear's position on abortion rights is getting a second look.

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The gender gap widens in the Harris-Trump contest

By Mark Murray

A slew of national and battleground state polls since President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 race find a much closer contest than we saw after his dismal debate performance.

But these polls reveal another important dynamic: an enormous gender gap between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris — in some cases bigger than the one in 2016 and 2020.

Take the recent New York Times/Siena College poll. Harris holds a 14-point lead over Trump among likely female voters (55% to 41%), while Trump holds a 17-point lead among men (56% to 39%). That’s a net 31-point gender gap.

It’s even bigger in the latest Quinnipiac University poll, where women are breaking for Harris by 16 points (56% to 40%) and men are siding with Trump by 23 points (60% to 37%). (Note: The Quinnipiac poll was conducted before and after Biden exited the 2024 race.) That’s a whopping 39-point gender gap.

Compare that to the race between Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016, when the NBC News exit poll found the net gender gap at 24 points. In the exit poll after the 2020 Biden-Trump