ELECTIONS ARE COMING: GOP Gains in Key Senate Races as Gender Gap Narrows In Iowa, Arkansas and Colorado. Janet Hook
http://online.wsj.com/articles/gop-gains-in-key-senate-races-as-gender-gap-narrows-1414107322?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
Democrats’ Advantage Among Women Voters Has Diminished
In a warning flag for Democrats, recent polls suggest the party is failing to draw enough support from women in three key Senate races—in Iowa, Arkansas and Colorado—to offset the strong backing that men are giving to Republicans.
Surveys this week in Arkansas and Colorado for the first time also showed the GOP candidates pulling even or ahead of Democrats among women voters, threatening to close the gender gap that has been a cornerstone of Democratic electoral strategy for decades.
While the situation remains fluid, an erosion in the Democrats’ traditionally large advantage among women would be perilous for the party, especially in an election year in which men, who favor Republicans overall, are showing a greater enthusiasm for voting.
Democrats are making a particular effort to mobilize unmarried women—their strongest supporters, but a group that tends to skip midterm elections. However, the rise of national-security concerns and low approval ratings for President Barack Obama may undercut that effort.
ENLARGE Democratic campaign officials dispute the accuracy of recent polls showing an erosion of the gender gap. Polls underestimate Democratic strength, especially among women, they argue, because they don’t reflect the potential impact of the party’s unprecedented get-out-the vote effort targeted in particular at single women. In 2012, many polls underestimated the turnout of core Democratic voters.
Matt Canter, deputy executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said his party retains its advantage among women but said its performance will turn heavily on Democratic candidates running up those margins. “At the end of the day, we will win these races if we win more women than they win men,” he said.
Trends among female voters are being closely watched by both parties at a time when polls show Senate races in nearly a dozen states are too close to call. In New Hampshire and North Carolina, a big advantage among women is helping to keep Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Kay Hagan on relatively strong footing in public opinion surveys.
But in Colorado, a USA Today/Suffolk University poll this week found the Republican candidate, Rep. Cory Gardner, leading Democratic Sen. Mark Udall among women, 46% to 39%. The result, if sustained, would be a rebuke to the election strategy of Mr. Udall, who has tried to appeal to suburban women with a heavy emphasis on abortion rights and birth control in his campaign.
Arkansas Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor also has targeted women voters with a “Women for Pryor” tour of the state early this month and a television ad criticizing his GOP opponent, Rep. Tom Cotton, for voting against legislation to renew federal anti-domestic violence programs. But a new Arkansas poll by Talk Business & Politics/Hendrix College earlier this week saw women favoring Mr. Cotton, 46% to 43%.
In Texas, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, who came to prominence because of her support for abortion rights, is trailing in her campaign against Republican Greg Abbott in part because Mr. Abbott has held a lead of nearly 30 percentage points among men in several surveys. A new poll, released Thursday by the University of Texas and the Texas Tribune, showed Mr. Abbott leading among women, as well, 48% to 46%, while holding a 61%-to-32% lead among men.
This month’s Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, taken Oct. 8-12, found men more enthusiastic about voting than women. Groups such as men age 50 and over were among the most enthusiastic about voting, while core Democratic groups, such as women age 18-49 and college-educated women, were among the least enthusiastic.
There has long been a gender divide in U.S. politics, with women more inclined to support Democrats and men more inclined to support Republicans. One rare exception came in 2010, when the GOP gained 63 House seats and six in the Senate as women backed Republicans, 49% to 48%, exit polls showed. Four years earlier, Democrats held a 55%-43% advantage.
Women tend to make up more than half the electorate. But turnout among Democrats’ most consistent female supporters—single and minority women—usually drops substantially in midterm elections compared with presidential-year levels.
That is why, in North Carolina, Ms. Hagan and her allies are working hard to boost turnout among single women by putting heavy emphasis on issues such as birth control, pay equity and abortion rights. She has dubbed her get-out-the-vote and voter registration efforts among women as “heels on the ground.”
So far, the effort seems to be paying off. An early October poll by Marist College/NBC News gave Ms. Hagan a 19-point advantage among women. Her GOP opponent Thom Tillis had a 13-point advantage among men. Her overall edge was 44%-40%.
That poll also showed some success in overcoming the enthusiasm gap: About the same share of women showed a high level of interest in the election as men, said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion.
The picture is different in other states. In Iowa, an early-October Marist/NBC poll found Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley winning among women by an 11-point margin against his GOP opponent, Joni Ernst. But that wasn’t enough to give him a leg up, in part because Ms. Ernst enjoyed an 18-point advantage among men. Overall, the poll found Ms. Ernst led, 46%-44%
In Colorado, Mr. Udall has focused the vast majority of his advertising on messages geared to women—especially on abortion and birth control—hitting his opponent, Mr. Gardner, for past support of a “personhood” amendment, which aims to give a fertilized egg the same rights as a person. In November, Mr. Gardner renounced his support for the measure, but the Udall campaign has continued to criticize him over the issue.
Some argue Mr. Udall’s focus on these issues has alienated men and even some women. “Men are so turned off they can’t see straight,” said Floyd Ciruli, an independent Colorado pollster. Democratic strategists say a bigger problem for Mr. Udall is how deeply unpopular Mr. Obama is in Colorado, even among women. The poll found that the president’s approval rating is 41%, both overall and among women.
Hillary Clinton traveled to Colorado Wednesday to make the case that women’s issues aren’t parochial. “Women’s rights are like the canaries in the mine,” she said at a Udall rally. “If women’s rights are denied or rolled back anywhere, it is a threat to everyone’s rights everywhere.”
Chris Harris, a Udall spokesman, said: “We do need to win women, but we are winning them.”
In Arkansas, where the Hendrix College poll found Mr. Pryor trailing among women, one analyst said the finding may reflect rising concerns over national security issues, such as the fight against Islamic militants, and over the Ebola virus outbreak.
“Southern women, especially southern moms, do seem more responsive to security issues,” said Jay Barth, a political scientist at Hendrix, citing research that showed differences between men and women shrank in the South in the 2004 election amid concerns about terrorism and the Iraq war.
The obstacles to grabbing the attention of busy women and working mothers was illustrated by a recent focus group with 10 women in North Carolina conducted by Republican and Democratic pollsters for Wal-Mart. Though tens of millions of dollars in television ads have aired in the state in recent months, hardly any of the women could recall much about Ms. Hagan or Mr. Tillis. Asked how they make a decision on the race, most said they would Google the candidates the night before the election—as one woman put it, “cramming for the test.’’
“It is almost like the campaign is falling on deaf ears,” said Neil Newhouse, the GOP pollster who conducted the focus group with Democratic pollster Margie Omero.
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