WASHINGTON (AP) — The lead-up to the 2024 election was all about cat owners. But in the end, the dogs had their day.
President-elect Donald Trump won slightly more than half of voters who own either cats or dogs, with a big assist from dog owners, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters. Dog owners were much more likely to support the Republican over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. Cat owners were split between the two candidates.
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FILE- President Bush, right, and first lady Barbara Bush walking with their dog Millie across the South Lawn as they return to the White House, Aug. 24, 1992. (AP Photo/Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - A sign directs the way to a polling place at Marina Park Community Center Nov. 5, 2024, in Newport Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, File)
FILE- President Bush, right, and first lady Barbara Bush walking with their dog Millie across the South Lawn as they return to the White House, Aug. 24, 1992. (AP Photo/Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - Presidential pet Bo climbing the stairs of Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. for a flight to Chicago with President Barack Obama, Aug. 4, 2010. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)
FILE - President Bill Clinton's cat Socks peers over the podium in the White House briefing room in Washington on March 19, 1994. (AP Photo/Marcy Nighswander, File)
About two-thirds of voters said they own a dog or cat, but pet owners don't usually get much attention from politicians. This year, however, past comments by Trump's running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, about “childless cat ladies” briefly became a campaign issue — and Taylor Swift signed her Instagram endorsement of Harris in September as “Taylor Swift Childless Cat Lady.”
Harris did end up decisively winning support from women who owned a cat but not a dog. Still, those voters were a relatively small slice of the electorate, and pet owners as a whole did not seem to hold Vance's remarks against the GOP ticket.
Childless or not, women who only owned a cat were more likely to support Harris than were dog owners, or voters who had a cat and a dog. About 6 in 10 women who owned a cat but not a dog supported Harris, according to AP VoteCast. She did similarly well among women who did not own either kind of pet.
Her success with women who were cat owners didn't translate to men. Trump narrowly won the backing of men who only owned cats; slightly more than half of these voters supported him.
It’s impossible to know how much Vance’s comments played into Harris’ success with women who only had cats, but most of those voters had a “very” or “somewhat” unfavorable opinion of Vance. They were more likely to dislike than women who only own dogs or women who have cats and dogs. They were also more likely than female voters overall to have a negative view of Trump and the Republican Party.
A simple explanation for the divide is that women who were cat owners were never very inclined to vote for Trump, even before Vance's comments resurfaced. According to AP VoteCast, only about 4 in 10 female voters who only owned a cat were Republicans.
If anything, the result of the 2024 election suggests that Democrats may have some work to do with dog owners. Voters who owned a dog, including those who owned a cat as well, were more likely to support Trump, and they made up a bigger share of the electorate.
Cat owners who didn't also have a dog made up only about 15% of voters. About 2 in 10 voters, by contrast, owned both kinds of pets, and about 3 in 10 only had a dog, which meant that dog owners were a much more influential voting bloc. Trump won about 6 in 10 men voters who owned a dog but no cat, and about half of female voters in this group.
While Trump’s campaign did not make the same appeals to dog owners that Harris’ campaign did with cat owners, Trump did falsely claim that immigrants in Ohio were stealing and eating dogs and cats. But, as with the Vance remarks, there is no evidence that Trump’s statements ultimately influenced pet owners’ decisions. In fact, party loyalty was likely a major factor — about 6 in 10 men who only own dogs identified as Republicans, as did about half of women who are dog owners.
So Democrats looking to make inroads with dog lovers may not have an easy fix ahead. But it's also true that neither Trump nor Harris own pets, which meant no dogs accompanied the presidential candidates on the campaign. It's possible that future campaigns could benefit from a little more bark.
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AP VoteCast is a survey of the American electorate conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for Fox News, PBS NewsHour, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press. The survey of more than 120,000 voters was conducted for eight days, concluding as polls closed. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. The survey combines a random sample of registered voters drawn from state voter files; self-identified registered voters using NORC’s probability based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population; and self-identified registered voters selected from nonprobability online panels. The margin of sampling error for voters overall is estimated to be plus or minus 0.4 percentage points. Find more details about APVoteCast’s methodology at https://www.ap.org/elections/our-role/ap-votecast/
FILE- President Bush, right, and first lady Barbara Bush walking with their dog Millie across the South Lawn as they return to the White House, Aug. 24, 1992. (AP Photo/Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - A sign directs the way to a polling place at Marina Park Community Center Nov. 5, 2024, in Newport Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, File)
FILE- President Bush, right, and first lady Barbara Bush walking with their dog Millie across the South Lawn as they return to the White House, Aug. 24, 1992. (AP Photo/Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - Presidential pet Bo climbing the stairs of Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. for a flight to Chicago with President Barack Obama, Aug. 4, 2010. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)
FILE - President Bill Clinton's cat Socks peers over the podium in the White House briefing room in Washington on March 19, 1994. (AP Photo/Marcy Nighswander, File)
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Alkharboutli joined dpa as a photographer in the Middle East in 2017. He mainly reported from the Syrian civil war zone.
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Settlers also attacked the village of Huwara, which has been the target of several previous attacks — even before the outbreak of the war in Gaza — and clashed with troops near Rujeib, another Palestinian village, the military said.
Israeli police and the Shin Bet security agency said in a statement that they were investigating the settler attacks. They said they arrested eight Israelis for suspected property damage and assaulting security forces.
The West Bank has seen a surge in settler violence since the start of the war, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack into Israel. Settlers have also raced to establish new farming outposts that rights groups say are among the biggest drivers of the violence.
The UN’s humanitarian office said settler attacks on Palestinian farmers during the recent olive harvest season “at least tripled” in 2024 compared to the last three years.
Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for an independent state.
The West Bank is home to some 3 million Palestinians who live under Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority exercising limited autonomy in cities and towns. Some 500,000 Jewish settlers with Israeli citizenship live in more than 100 settlements across the West Bank, many of which resemble suburbs or small towns.
Most of the international community considers the settlements to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.
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A burnt house following a settler attack that damaged vehicles and houses in the village of Beit Furik, in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Mohammed Hanani looks at his burnt car following a settler attack that damaged vehicles and houses in the village of Beit Furik, in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Mohammed Hanani looks at his burnt car following a settler attack that damaged vehicles and houses in the village of Beit Furik, in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
A man carries a sack of donated flour distributed by UNRWA at the Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024.(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A man grabs a sack of donated flour at a UNRWA distribution center in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024.(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Israeli armoured vehicles move on in an area at the Israeli-Gaza border, seen from southern Israel, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
