Former Gov. Mitt Romney might be sweeping the primaries and picking up a lot of delegates, but President Obama is sweeping female voters off their feet, so say the polls.
USA Today/Gallup released a poll showing that female voters are rallying around the president, and this gender gap could pose a huge challenge for Republicans as the president leads Romney by 18 percentage points among registered female voters in the top dozen swing states. The poll showed that this is the first significant lead the president has held in these states. And it was a huge change among women under 50. In the middle of February under half of that demographic supported the president. Now more than six in 10 support the president, and support for Romney? Well not as victorious as his delegate pick up...he lost 14 percentage points with these women, meaning the president is leading him 2-1 among registered female voters under 50. And the USA Today/Gallup poll is not the only poll showing such results, a recent Quinnipiac University poll showed similar numbers.
[Vote: Can the GOP Regain Women Voters?]
The most interesting thing, as a woman who is also a progressive liberal Democrat and feminist, is that the Republicans brought this upon themselves. The more they spoke about contraceptives, the more it sounded like we were in the year 1712 rather than 2012. And as much as Republicans have attacked Democrats for birth control, Democrats have reached out to these voters specifically pointing out these issues. These poll numbers show that the GOP is alienating female voters in droves. And the GOP can't just blame Rush Limbaugh for his remarks about Ms. Fluke. Mitt Romeny has pledged to end Planned Parenthood, and of course, if a top conservative self proclaimed Republican calls a woman a slut and a prostitute because she is sexually active and wants her birth control paid for as part of her health benefits, it speaks volumes of the men on the right.
So women left and right might say, is that really how men view us? How sexist! How unsupportive of not only our reproductive rights, but our health!
[See a collection of political cartoons on the Catholic contraception controversy.]
I've said it before I'll say it again: As a woman, you can't win with the GOP. They don't want you to have sex, get pregnant, prevent pregnancy, and if you want to avoid pregnancy, don't use birth control. And if you're going to use birth control, they don't want to pay for it. And if you want to run down the street to Planned Parenthood, well, they want to cut the funding for that. And if you get pregnant, have the baby. But they want to cut funding programs like food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, welfare, etc. You see the point? Or perhaps the problem?
The Democrats may have dubbed this the GOP "war on women," and those are fighting words. But the battle will be fought at the polls in November, and at least for today, the ladies seem to have the final say in this war.
- See a collection of political cartoons on the Republican party.
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Reader Comments Read all comments (15)
Will K of CO 3:14PM November 05, 2012
Southern Female of SC 11:45AM July 31, 2012
Dan of MO 12:34PM April 09, 2012