Dear John,
In a year where we’ve seen increasingly drastic efforts to suppress the vote—at least 11 states have enacted restrictive voting laws this year, according to the Brennan Center—advocates are working harder than ever to get out the vote. These efforts kicked into high gear this week as we celebrated National Voter Registration Week—with a particular focus on young voters in battleground states, who have some of the biggest capacity to make a difference, and who are some of the most targeted for voter suppression. From shortening mail-in ballot deadlines, to discriminatory voter ID laws, to refusing to place polling places on college campuses, these restrictive laws blatantly target what could be the largest voting bloc in the country. And in doing so, they serve a clearly partisan aim—young voters are consistently more liberal than the general electorate, according to a number of analyses.
When it comes to young voters, we’re seeing a bigger gender gap than ever. According to a New York Times/Siena poll of voters aged 18-29 in six swing states, 67 percent of young women supported Kamala Harris, compared with 40 percent of young men. In contrast, 53 percent of young men supported Donald Trump, compared with 29 percent of young women. Polling experts say the gender gap has grown significantly in the years since the 2016 presidential election.
You could say we’ve been keeping our eye on this issue for a while—some of our earliest reporting on the gender gap dates back to issues of Ms. released in the 1980’s. If you want to stay up to date on the gender gap, and how it will play out in the 2024 presidential election, head to MsMagazine.com—we’ve got all the latest reporting on the gender gap and what’s driving women’s voting decisions, as well as all the issues at play in this year’s elections, including abortion rights.
As the election unfolds, across the country we continue see the dangerous and sometimes deadly impacts of the extreme abortion bans enacted in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. We were saddened and horrified by the stories of two Georgia women, whose preventable deaths were deemed a result of the state’s abortion ban, according to reporting from ProPublica. Earlier this year we reported on the death of a young woman in Texas, the result of that state’s draconian abortion ban. And there is no doubt there are other deaths we do not hear about.
Rest in power, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller.
This past week the nation celebrated Constitution Week. For women, it’s more than ironic since with the exception of the right to vote, American women are left out of the Constitution. The Equal Rights Amendment, first introduced in 1923, was meant to fix this—to ensure that women are recognized as equal under the law. Yet here we are, 101 years later, still waiting for it to be placed in the Constitution as the 28th Amendment.
Although the ERA has been ratified by the required three-quarters of the states and all that remains is for Congress to pass a simple resolution directing it be placed in the Constitution, politicians continue to block it with their political games. This is why the 2024 elections matter. This fight isn’t just about one issue—it’s about the foundation of our lives, our futures, and the country we want to leave for all our daughters.
For so many reasons, we cannot afford to sit this one out.
Onward,
