From a YouGov survey conducted September 4–8:
Thus, there are
- a 10-point gender gap, with women being less likely to vote guilty;
- a 4-point disparity between Hispanics and whites, with whites being less likely to vote guilty;
- a 6-point gender gap by education, with college graduates being less likely to vote guilty;
- virtually no black-white gap or income gap;
- a regional gap of about 5 to 7 points between the Northeast and other regions, with Northeasterners being less likely to vote guilty;
- a 3-to-5-point gap between 45-to-64-year-olds and other age ranges, with the other ranges being less likely to vote guilty;
- a substantial gap by ideology, which is not surprising because “ideology” generally captures the kinds of value judgments that underlie these opinions;
- a large gap by party identification, which is similarly unsurprising because party identification is closely linked to ideology.
So the gender gap is real, and a significant portion of it persists even when controlling for ideology: My Hoover colleague and Stanford political science professor Doug Rivers, who serves as YouGov’s chief scientist (and former CEO), tells me that “Among Democrats, 33% of men and 27% of women would find her guilty; among Republicans, 68% of men and 60% of women would find her guilty.”
But at the same time the difference is not enormous: Again, it amounts to only about 10 percentage points; only one-quarter of women supported a not guilty by reason of insanity verdict. In fact, even among Democratic women, Doug notes that only 41% supported a not guilty by reason of insanity verdict, though it was the top choice among the three options in that particular subcategory.
Of course, none of this determines who is right in general or who would be correct under the specific jury instructions Massachusetts law provides for such matters. Yet it serves as a reminder that gender gaps do exist, though they are often exaggerated.
