Not only have women been a majority of the voters in recent elections (53% in 2012), they also kept President Obama in the Oval Office (55% of those women — nearly 30% of all voters — voted for President Obama in 2012). Obviously, women — specifically, unmarried women — decided the 2012 election.
According to exit polls from 2012 conducted by Edison Research, Obama’s margin among unmarried women was 67 percent to Romney’s 31 percent, giving him more than 11 million more unmarried women’s votes than Romney’s total; Romney’s 53 percent of married women’s votes compared to Obama’s 46 percent amounted to only around 2.5-3 million more married votes than Obama’s total. Thus Obama’s margin among unmarried women was more than three times as large as Romney’s margin among married women.
In Virginia, McAuliffe won the unmarried women’s vote (18% of Virginia voters) by a 42-point margin (67%- 25%). Little wonder the Democrat candidates focus on free abortion, birth control, and entitlements and distort and demagogue the equal pay issues; those issues win among unmarried women voters (who are overwhelmingly dependent upon government support).
According to Celina Lake, a Democratic pollster, non-college-educated women (statistically more likely to be unmarried) are “volatile” voters who sometimes don’t make up their mind until the end of an election campaign; other pollsters point out that these voters are more likely to be “swing voters.” That means current polls are not necessarily predictive. A lot can happen in these last few days before Election 2014.
That’s why those who want to get the country back on track must energize married women for the 2014 election.
Earlier this month, President Obama famously said that while he is not on the ballot, his policies are. It’s not clear whether his statement will help or hurt Democrat candidates. The widespread “disillusionment” with the President extends deeply into his own party, liberals, celebrities, blacks (here and here), Millennial (who were a huge voting bloc for him in 2008 and 2012) and even, according to Washington Post/ABC, Hispanics and women.
Obviously, the President’s base is committed to liberal policies even though they recognize the President’s failures. Their internal dissonance could be easily manipulated. If, at the last minute, the Democrats’ strong ground game is sufficient to persuade, arm-twist, bus to the polls or otherwise manufacture votes, it could be a 2012 upset all over again.
On almost any level you want to measure, according to Britain’s Telegraph, “America is so over Obama!” This is the 17th consecutive month that Americans have disapproved of the President’s leadership. Incredibly, the President has “played more rounds of golf since 2009 than Tiger Woods.” The Telegraph provides a long litany of failures that prove the point: high black unemployment has discouraged workers, driven down labor force participation to record low levels, quality of life for blacks has declined rather than improved, and the middle class is bearing the brunt of 442 tax increases!
As we head into the November 2014 mid-term election, there is encouraging news from a variety of sources. CNN reports that voters are no longer being duped by the “war on women” myth.
But the Left will continue tirelessly and subtly pushing the notion that “what women want” is its radical “women’s rights agenda.” It will promote sex without consequences, free contraception, abortion-on-demand, affirmative action via quotas and preferential treatment in the workplace — all issues popular with single women. Against all evidence to the contrary, it will try to convince voters that women want government to replace marriage, husbands and fathers, decry marriage as oppressive to women, and glorify the “independence” of being a single mother (thus promoting the growth of one of the most reliable voting blocs for “progressive” politicians).
Coupled with these myths, the Left will castigate anyone who opposes the vast expansion of the federal bureaucracy, accusing them of engaging in blaming the victims for the inherently backbreaking and emotionally draining difficulties that go with holding down a job and caring for children singlehandedly; any efforts to curtail the appalling growth in government dependency will be painted as engaging in a “War on Women.”
The Right needs to understand and confidently help voters understand that the evidence from poll after poll indicates that a solid majority of women still want to be married and have children; and, they think both are linked to living happily. There are numerous polls showing that teens still want to get married, raise a family and live the American dream. In addition, the facts overwhelmingly provide evidence of women’s incredible progress over the past century as well as the benefits of traditional values — including marriage — for women and children’s well-being.
Conservative candidates in these days leading up to November 4 have the wind behind their backs; according to ABC News, 68 percent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track.
They need to use that momentum to convince married women, who often manage the family budget, that they understand the importance of the both the pocketbook issues and the social issues. Many married women are discouraged Walmart Moms who want their children to live the American Dream, but they see it going down the drain because of dramatic expansion of government entitlements — food stamp enrollment is up 70 percent under Obama. They see first-hand the hit that the middle class has taken from failed radical left policies. They see first-hand the impact that the crass and vulgar culture and the dumbing down of the nation’s schools — including Common Core — is having on their children. They are appalled that abortions are increasingly used as birth control by 20-and-30-year-olds and that Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups fight strenuously against sensible abortion clinic restrictions that protect women’s lives and health.
Conservatives need to directly and effectively address all these issues and spread the message expressed by Carly Fiorina at the latest CPAC, “It is liberals who are willing to sacrifice other people’s lives and livelihoods at the altar of their ideology.”
