Polls are out showing that Democrats’ support among “women” is down. The recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows it is down from 51% to 47%.* This is important, according to the article reporting the poll, because Democrats need women’s votes since Democrats do better among women than men (which means, depending on how you look at it, the “gender gap” either favors the Democrats {if you look at the fact more women vote Democratic than the population as a whole} or the Republicans {if you look at the fact that more men vote Republican than the population as a whole}).
But the real point, which does not seem to be covered by this poll, is not that women vote Democratic. It’s that single women vote Democratic. Married women vote Republican. (See here and here.) Which is a different point.
But the conclusion, in any case, is not that Republicans (or Democrats, from their point of view) should change their views to get more single women (in the case of Republicans – or married women, in the case of Democrats) to vote for them. Your principles are your principles (and if they aren’t, I’m not a big fan of yours). If you believe in your principles, what you can do (actually, all you can do) is to explain why your principles help single women. I think they do. It is a matter of explaining your principles better and trusting in the intelligence of the voters. And accepting that if people don’t believe in your principles, they won’t vote for you. And further accepting that, if somebody else is willing to “buy” votes by abandoning their principles, that’s the choice they make.
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* The question was: Which party do you prefer to control Congress. In August, the response among “women” favored Democrats 51% to 37%. The September result was down to 47% to 40%.
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