This summer, as Gore languished, a different story emerged. Women seemed briefly willing to support a kinder, gentler Republican presidential candidate who talked about education, Social Security, and tax relief. But there is another gender gap, and it is male. Over time, men have been deserting the Democratic Party in greater numbers than women have been embracing it. We might believe this loss does not matter so long as women remain the core of the Democratic coalition.
Democrats ignore men at their peril.
Gore's populist message bumps up against white male voters' antigovernment and antitax views, though this obstacle is not insurmountable. Men's and women's identification with the Democratic Party was nearly identical in the 1950s and early 1960s. Starting in 1964, men's support for the Democrats dropped precipitously from just over 50 percent to the high 30s, and continued to decline throughout the 1970s, reaching a low of 28 percent in 1994. The hemorrhage began with southern white men. The decline in white male support for the Democratic Party was also dramatic in the 1990s.