A new study finds more women now lean Democratic

In the midst of the #MeToo movement and with an unprecedented number of women running for elected office, the gender gap between Democrats and Republicans is among the highest it has been since 1992, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center.

Women have been more likely than men to identify as Democrats for decades, but today, 56 percent of women consider themselves Democrats or lean Democratic. The same is only true for 44 percent of men.

Meanwhile, 37 percent of women and 48 percent of men affiliate with or lean toward the GOP.

Women who “lean Democratic” rather than identify as Democrats are widening the gap: The share of women who explicitly identify with the Democratic Party has stayed relatively constant since 1994, the Pew authors write.

The trend also appears to be driven at least in part by millennial women. The overall number of women who identify or lean Democratic is up four percentage points since 2015, but the difference for younger women even more substantial: In 2014, only 56 percent of millennial women affiliated with the Democratic Party or leaned Democratic, compared with 70 percent today.

Meanwhile, in the midterm elections, a record number of Democratic women are running for House and Senate seats: At latest count, 423 women were running for or were likely to run for the House nationwide — 330 Democrats and 93 Republicans. Around this point in 2016, there were fewer than half that: 212. And 52 women are running for or likely to run for Senate, compared with 25 in February of 2016.

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