Gender and race in Kamala Harris’s defeat. A cross-state analysis of U.S. 2024 presidential election

This research note employs aggregate State level data to analyze the results of the 2024 US presidential election, and to explore the role played by gender and race in Kamala Harris’s defeat. The Democratic party failed to capitalize on the characteristics of its presidential candidate and, compared to Biden’s election, to expand its support in states with larger female and African American electorates, and faced systematic losses in those with more Hispanic voters. This note contributes to a cumulative macro-micro approach to the analysis of election results, and thus to overcoming both ecological and micrological fallacies.