Why a strong female support base wasn't enough to help Kamala Harris to a presidential victory

Female voters were expected to vote en masse for Kamala Harris on Election Day. There was an advertising blitz encouraging conservative women to secretly vote for Harris. There was a bold proclamation from anti-Donald Trump Republican Liz Cheney that women “save the dayTuesday. And polls showed Harris had a commanding 20-point lead over Trump on abortion.

None of that was nearly enough for Harris to win the presidency.

Political pundits and pollsters say Trump handily defeated Harris, despite his weaknesses on issues like abortion, because of areas where he connected so strongly with voters — particularly his claim that he would improve the economy and his commitment to to be different from the current government.

“If you look at the exit poll, what is the issue that was most important? It was the economy and people feeling like they couldn’t make ends meet and inflation was negatively impacting their lives,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University .

“The challenge that Kamala Harris had was that while she was not Joe Biden, she was Joe Biden’s vice president. It was very difficult to break away from that when the president himself had such a high disapproval rating,” she said.

Data from NBC News’ exit polls in 10 key states as of 7 p.m. ET, Wednesday showed large gender gaps for the candidates: Among men, who made up 47% of the electorate, Harris won 42% of the vote and Trump 55%. Among women, who made up 53% of the electorate, 53% voted for Harris and 45% for Trump.

Broken down by race and education, the gender gap was even more divisive in some cases, with an overwhelming 91% of black women voting for Harris versus 7% who voted for Trump, and 57% of college-educated white women voting for Harris versus 41% who voted for Trump.

But among white female non-college graduates, only 35% voted for Harris, compared to 63% who voted for Trump.

“There is an education gap in this country that has become much more apparent in terms of voting behavior,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research, who conducted the last NBC News poll before the election with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies. . “Yes, abortion is a very, very fundamental election issue, but if you look primarily at white women and white non-college-educated women, inflation, cost of living and other issues are weakening her margins with those voters.”

A majority of voters in the exit polls – 65% – said they supported the legality of abortion, and 93% of all voters expressed more confidence in Harris to address abortion, compared to just 5% who expressed confidence in Trump stated. But only 14% of voters said abortion was most important to their votes when asked to choose from five issues. The economy was the most pressing issue for most voters, with 32% putting it first.

Harris is the second woman to defeat Trump in the presidential race. That doesn’t mean Americans aren’t ready for a female president, Walsh said, noting that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016.

But, she added, Harris faced a huge uphill battle, especially because she had so little time to put forward her positions on all issues after Biden announced he was dropping out of the race.

“When a woman of color runs for that job, all the stereotypes about who can take charge are completely overturned, and she had less than 200 days to do that,” she said.

Trump’s victory sparked a series of reactions from female voters.

In Waukesha County, Wisconsin, Jessica Elliott said she voted for Trump because she thought he would “keep us moving in the right direction” with the economy, her main concern.

“I’m a single mother and have a daughter who works full-time, and grocery shopping is difficult. Gas is hard. Things are expensive, she said. “The budgets are really, really thin.”

In Phoenix, the capital of the swing state of Arizona, small business owner Alexandria Bielek cried Wednesday before describing how disappointed she felt, especially as a woman.

“I feel devastated,” says 50-year-old Bielek. “I am 100% confident that there will be a national abortion ban within the next four years.”

She said she had hoped for a different outcome.

“I just thought the other choice was so despicable that she should actually have a chance, especially by not campaigning heavily on the fact that she was a woman,” Bielek said.

In her concession speech Wednesday, Harris encouraged her supporters to keep fighting for the future they want to see in the country.

She told young people to never give up.

“You have power,” she said. “And never listen when someone tells you something is impossible because it has never been done before.”

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News: