The reasons people vote a certain way or can't be bothered to show up at the polls are going to vary significantly across the nearly quarter billion humans making those choices.
So any attempt to "single issue" explain election results are going to be wrong, particularly in a close election like this one. (49.8% vs 48.3%, and Electoral Votes in battleground states often in the tens of thousands of voters, out of tens of millions.
But many of the issues certainly contribute to flipping voters between one candidate, another, or staying home.
So sure, totally, gender and race played a role.
The economy (and steep inflation) played a role.
Biden being an increasingly disliked incumbent, staying in the race too long, and Harris being too conservative to distance herself from him played a role.
News and propaganda played a role (and I suspect this is a big one. Remember when Trump was all like Deep State, Democrats and Epstein, let's get those files released! And then it came time to do it, and for some reason he was like... oh that's a bad idea?)
No doubt individual state politics play a role, too - an unpopular governor might give the opposing party a boost.
But yeah, if the Democratic nominee was a) nominated, and b) a white male, the odds probably would've shifted in their favor enough to flip those few battleground states.