A noted phenomenon of the current election cycle is that, among Democrats, Hillary Clinton has less support among young women — ages 18 to 29 — than among older women, who poll firmly in her favor.
Teenage and 20-something women are currently leaning more toward Bernie Sanders. Clinton won just 16 percent of young female voters in the New Hampshire primary, for example, a state she took in 2008.
What’s up with that?
Pollsters and researchers have been trying to figure out why that should be for weeks, and one compelling factor has emerged: Support of Clinton among young voters increases to about the same level as that of older voters if they have at least one daughter. Support for her is particularly low among voters with no children and those with only sons.
The reasons for this aren’t explained in the data, but it’s reasonable to assume that voters are more likely to take Clinton’s gender into consideration and even to weigh that factor more heavily than others in the presence of their own female children. Certainly it has affected at least one person’s vote.
