Barack Obama and the White Women Vote—Democrats Just Don't Win That Group
According to today's Washington Post poll, John McCain has pulled back into a virtual tie with Barack Obama, thanks to a swing among white female voters.
Maybe so (we're just now starting to reach the point of the calendar where polls can be taken seriously), but this represents less a tidal shift than GOP voters coming home. Were Obama to win white women outright this year, he would become only the second Democrat to do so in more than 30 years.
From today's Post:
Much of the shift toward McCain stems from gains among white women, voters his team hoped to sway with the pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate. White women shifted from an eight-point pre-convention edge for Obama to a 12-point McCain advantage now.
In that respect, Palin seems to have done her job. But while women as a whole vote Democratic, white women don't. George W. Bush smoked John Kerry with them in 2004 after edging Al Gore in that group in 2000. He beat the Massachusetts senator by 11 points—or roughly what McCain is beating Obama by at the moment, according to the Post. Bill Clinton won 48 percent of white women in 1996, to Bob Dole's 43 percent, with Ross Perot claiming 8 percent, and he tied George H. W. Bush among the demographic in 1992, with 41 percent each (Perot took 18 percent).
But Clinton's appeal was unique: The elder Bush took 56 percent of white women in 1988, and Ronald Reagan took 62 percent in his 1984 landslide. Reagan won 52 percent to Jimmy Carter's 39 percent (John Anderson pulled 8 percent) in 1980. Gerald Ford won the group in 1976, with 52 percent to Carter's 36.
Palin might have helped McCain in as much as she may have spurred women who were likely to prefer McCain anyway to return to the GOP camp. More broadly, part of the smarts of McCain's acceptance speech was resurrecting the 2000 "maverick" candidate that so appealed to swing voters. By separating himself from the GOP, McCain gave disaffected Republicans—people who didn't want to admit supporting the GOP mess—a reason to come back to the fold.
Tags: Democrats | presidential election 2008 | voters | Barack Obama | George W. Bush | John McCain | female voters
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Reader Comments
You got it backwards
I am a black republican. I can say that because I have a brain. What's sad is how you nerdy guilty white liberals are always claiming racism on my behalf. But you have it backwards! If it wasn't for white woman voting for Obama, he wouldn't be in the race. When 90% of blacks are voting for Obama, just because he is black, there is your racism. But like typical white people, you nerdy journalist's are too cowardly to report that.
As for Sarah Palin, liberals only dislike her because of jealousy and the fact that she defines a real strong woman. Liberal woman couldn't do near what she has done in life and politics. She will be President after she becomes Vice President.It's over. Go home.
IdiotsForObama.Com
Palin because she's a white women?
It's a sad day in this country. If Palin and McCain are voted into office, we as women are in big trouble. They will insert two conservative judges and then this country will seemingly be led by dictatorship as our rights will be on hold for the next twenty years. It's hard for me to believe the polls and that white women are voting for her merely because she is a white women and not because they believe in her views. So if you say race does not play a factor, you are truly lying to yourself because I believe as a white women that we need to get the republicans out of the white house ASAP.
It's offensive that anyone thinks women are that dumb!
It's offensive to think women are going to be so easily fooled. I'm not distracted by a pretty little hunting, fishing skirt. Talk about a name dropper, now she's using God as a personal reference. As a Christian I'm appalled, as a Republican I'm frustrated. As an American woman I deserve better!
Sarah Palin has nothing in common with an average woman like myself. If anything she's more like Hillary Clinton. The idea that trotting her out will make a simple little white gal like me swoon is offensive. Men may be thrilled to vote for a pretty gal shooting her way across the Tundra but women aren't that dumb. If you want to woo this simple female, more substance and less self-riteousness would be more appealing. If not at least pick a good looking man.
Good luck keeping a handle on that barracuda if you win it Senator McCain.
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