Gender, Sexism, and the Election: Did Sexism Help Trump More Than It Hurt Clinton?

Data from Reuters/Ipsos polls (6116 respondents) conducted shortly before and after the 2016 presidential election (from 4 to 17 November 2016) were used to test whether: (1) women and men differed in favorability toward Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump, (2) sexism (either hostile or benevolent) predicted favorability ratings toward each candidate. Overall, men and women rated Clinton similarly, but men favored Trump significantly more than women did. Hostile sexist attitudes were second only to general political orientation in predicting positive attitudes toward Trump; however, hostile sexism predicted disfavoring Clinton only among women and not among men. By contrast, benevolent sexism weakly, but significantly predicted greater favorability toward Clinton but was unrelated to Trump favorability ratings. Thus, hostile sexist attitudes among voters significantly helped Trump, whereas benevolent sexism yielded only a weak protective effect toward Clinton.