The gender gap and abortion took center stage with voters

The gender gap took center stage in this year’s election: Vice President Harris attempted to woo women voters by emphasizing the party’s commitment to reproductive freedom, while former President Donald Trump focused his efforts on getting men to vote.

Trump’s strategy has seemed to be successful: his appearances on podcasts with mostly male audiences, like The Joe Rogan Experience and Full Send Podcast, have emphasized his position as the “man’s candidate,” according to Jackson Katz, the creator of the documentary The Man Card.

“The message being sent to young men was ‘I see you, I care about you, and the other side thinks you're toxic,' ” Katz told NPR’s Morning Edition.

Meanwhile, Harris may have struggled to recruit female voters after Trump relaxed some of his positions on federal abortion bans. Last month, Trump said that he would veto a federal abortion ban, which may have eased female voters' concerns about reproductive freedoms.

“I think women sort of said, ‘OK, well, maybe that's taken care of and we can vote with our pocketbooks,’ ” said Elaine Kamarck, the director of the Center for Effective Public Management at Brookings Institution.