The left and the media bleat incessantly about the “gender gap” and the GOP’s struggles with women voters. The Democrats are obsessed with the “women’s vote” and believe they have a built-in advantage when appealing to female voters. It leads them into dark policy alleyways like the “GOP’s War on Woman” and Andrea Mitchell’s inane statement over the weekend that the Ryan pick as “not a pick for women…not a pick for suburban moms.” Polling released today, however, indicates that the Dems have this belief very wrong.
This morning, Politico released its latest Battleground poll. Helpfully, they also released the full cross-tabs for the poll, making possible a deep analysis we can only dream of with other media polls. In analyzing the data we find that the single biggest determinate for how a woman votes comes down to one thing: marriage. The Democrats have a distinct advantage among single women, but the GOP has the edge with women who are married.
In a head-to-head match-up, Obama leads Romney among women 55% to 40%, a 15-point advantage. Among men, Romney leads Obama by 12 points, 53% to 41%. But, lets break down the women voters. Among single women, Obama leads Romney by a huge 46 points, 72% to 26%. But, among married women, Romney captures 50% of their support, leading Obama by 6 points. For context, that’s a 52-point swing in support between single women and married. Unfortunately for Obama, there are a lot more married female voters than single.
The same dynamic shows up among men, but it is slightly less pronounced. Single men prefer Obama by 17 points, 54% to 37%. Married men prefer Romney by 28 points, 61% to 34%. A 45-point swing from Obama to Romney.
In fact, Obama and the Democrats seems to have a general problem with married voters. Single voters prefer Obama by 28 points. Married voters prefer Romney by 17. Keep in mind, this is all married voters without factoring race or education. (White married women, for example, whom Andrea Mitchell probably thinks of as “suburban moms”, prefer Romney by 21 points.
So, if the left and the media want to keep talking about the perceived “gender gap”, lets ask them to explain why they are suffering from such an extreme “marriage gap.” Why are married voters so clearly rejecting Barack Obama and the Democrats?
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