Six in Ten of Younger Women Voters Say They Are More Likely to Vote for a Candidate Supportive of #MeToo Movement
With the 2018 primary election season concluding in August and the general congressional mid-term election season ramping up, Kaiser Family Foundation polling finds younger women (ages 18-44) voters are more enthusiastic about voting this year than in previous mid-term elections.
In a new data note about KFF’s June Health Tracking Poll that is focused on women voters’ influence in this year’s elections and beyond, the 39 percent of younger women voters expressing “more enthusiasm” is almost three times higher than the 14 percent expressing the same sentiment in the 2014 mid-term election.
With young women’s voting sentiment higher this year, their ideological makeup will be of interest. The poll finds that twice as many young women voters identify as Democrats (43%) than as Republicans (21%).
The 2018 mid-term election will be the first since the #MeToo movement (campaign to raise awareness about sexual harassment and assault) went viral last year. About half of all women voters (54%) and six in ten (62%) of younger women voters say that they are more likely to vote for a candidate who is an outspoken supporter of the international #MeToo movement. About one-third (35%) of women voters say a candidate’s stance on #MeToo does not matter to their vote and few women voters (7%) say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who does not address these issues.
More findings focused on women voters’ opinions about their priorities for campaign issues and on policy issues of special interest to women can be found in the Data Note: How Women Voters Could Influence the 2018 Elections and Beyond.
Designed and analyzed by researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation, the poll was conducted from June 11-20, 2018 among a nationally representative random digit dial telephone sample of 1,492 adults. The poll includes an oversample of young women under the age of 45 (n=402) for an analysis. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish by landline (319) and cell phone (1,173). The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the full sample and plus or minus 6 percentage points for women under age 45. For results based on subgroups, the margin of sampling error may be higher.