Why Educated Women Vote Against Other Women

There is a psychological reason for that.And you are definitely not going to like the answer.The StudyResearcher Scott Huettel at Duke University studied why people vote against their own interests and published his findings in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.What he found was this: people do not vote to protect their interests. They vote to express who they are.He called it expressive voting.When identity and policy compete, identity wins. Every single time. The ballot is not a policy instrument. It is a declaration of belonging.The Number That Should Bother YouHere is the trend line on college-educated white women voting for Trump.2016: 35 percent. 2020: 45 percent. 2024: 41 percent.Yes, it is dropping. And yes, that matters. But 41 percent is still nearly half of educated white women choosing a man who eliminated their right to an abortion, was found liable for sexual abuse in civil court, and bragged on tape about grabbing women without consent.Not uneducated women. Not women without access to information. Women with degrees. Women with careers. Women with the resources and the time to know exactly what they were choosing.The number is going in the right direction. It is still a damning number.WhyTheir church said vote Republican. Their husband said vote Republican. Their community said vote Republican.And the brain, when forced to choose between policy and belonging, chose belonging.Here is why that is not surprising from a neuroscience standpoint. The threat of social exclusion activates the same neural pathways as physical pain. Being cast out of your community, your church, your marriage, your dinner table — the brain does not experience that as social discomfort. It experiences it as danger.Losing your reproductive rights feels abstract until it is happening to you personally. Losing your community feels like losing everything right now.So they voted to keep their people. Even as he was taking their rights.What Expressive Voting Actually MeansThey were not voting for a policy position. They were not voting for a value they hold. They were voting to avoid being left out.That is the honest read of expressive voting applied here. The vote was not confused or uninformed. It was a calculated trade. Keep the community, let someone else absorb the cost.And that is the part that is hardest to sit with.These were not women who did not understand what was at stake. They understood. They just made sure it was other women — poorer women, younger women, women without their options — who paid the price.What the Trend Line Actually Tells UsThe drop from 45 percent in 2020 to 41 percent in 2024 is real. Something is shifting. The Dobbs decision, which made the cost of expressive voting suddenly concrete and personal for millions of women, likely moved that number.That is exactly what the research predicts. Expressive voting weakens when the cost stops feeling abstract. When losing your rights stops being a talking point and starts being a doctor telling you they cannot help you, the calculus changes.The question is how much more personal it has to get before the number moves further.Because 41 percent is progress. It is also still almost half.SourcesHuettel, S. A. Expressive voting research, Duke University Center for Neuroeconomic Studies. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.Edison Research / ABC News Exit Poll Analysis (2024). Gender gap and college-educated white women voting patterns 2016–2024. https://abcnews.go.com/538/gender-gap-tells-us-trumps-win/story?id=115996226Pew Research Center (2016 validated voter study). White college-educated women vote share analysis. Reported in TIME, October 2018.Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute, Rutgers University (2024). Gender Differences in 2024 Presidential Vote. https://cawp.rutgers.edu This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lucasbean.substack.com/subscribe