The political gender gap

It looks like the GOP has alienated another large segment of the voting population: women.

Barack Obama’s advantages among women voters over his GOP rivals are striking. Obama led Mitt Romney by 20 points (58% to 38%) among women voters and Rick Santorum by 26 points (61% to 35%) in the Pew Research Center’s most recent national survey, conducted March 7-11. Obama runs about even with Romney among men and leads Santorum.

Just as women have been more likely to vote Democratic in presidential elections, a higher percentage also identifies with or leans toward the Democratic Party. In surveys this year, 52% of women identify with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic, compared with 43% of men. This figure is in line with the gender gap in party identification dating back to 1990. In 2008, 56% of women and 46% of men identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic.

And these numbers become more significant when you look at Senate races in major swing states (from TPM).

Now that Mitt Romney pretty much has the nomination sewn up, you can expect to see his campaign start tacking back to the center. But given that the party has gone so far to the right on issues like contraception and abortion (to the point of advocating state-sponsored rape with the laws requiring transvaginal ultrasounds), it’s difficult to see how it’s going to bring this group of voters back into the fold.

Related articles

• Poll: Women Voters Fleeing Flee Romney In Swing States Give Obama a Lead (themoderatevoice.com)
• How GOP can win more women voters (csmonitor.com)
• Election poll: ‘Cavernous’ gender gap gives boost to Obama (csmonitor.com)
• Republicans face massive gender deficit (dailykos.com)
• R’s might want to re-think their war on women (scaypgrayce.wordpress.com)