Are Umarried Women the Key to 2014 Midterm Elections?

Despite protests to the contrary, the Republican Party is maintaining its war on women when not temporarily distracted by the GOP's war on the poor.  The GOP opposes equal pay legislation that would protect women and seeks to oversee every intimate aspect of women's bodies, and in some states are pushing for laws that would make it harder for women to escape abusive marriages.   Thus, the claim that the GOP is not anti-woman - other than perhaps those who opt to stay home barefoot and pregnant - simply do not match up with objective reality.  A piece in Politico looks at the role unmarried women may play in deciding the outcome of the 2014 midterm elections.  Here are excerpts:

[M]arital status is one of the strongest predictors of whether a person will vote and for which party, which is why so many progressives and Democrats are paying attention now.

A majority of American households are now unmarried, and nearly a quarter of the presidential-year electorate were unmarried women. But marriage is now politicized too. Nearly 60 percent of those who call themselves Republicans are married and three-quarters of the conservative Republican base are married. By contrast, two-thirds of unmarried women voted for Barack Obama and Democrats for Congress in 2012; two-thirds voted for Terry McAuliffe for Virginia governor in 2013.

But if you want to know why unmarried women are now the focus, it is not because they are assuredly Democrats, or even assuredly voters. In an off-year election, and when so many are struggling economically, unmarried women are no guarantee at the polls.

In our most recent national survey, just two-thirds of unmarried women who voted in 2012 said they were almost certain to vote in November, and 10.5 million unmarried women who voted in 2012 are project to stay home in November.

And in our latest poll done for NPR – conducted jointly by Democracy Corps and Resurgent Republic – the Democrats were ahead by 1 point in the generic congressional ballot (44 to 43 percent), but unmarried women gave Democrats 58 percent of their votes. That sounds high, but it is nearly 10 points below what we would see in a presidential-year election, suggesting that Democrats have some work to do.So, if you are a Democrat and want to change your electoral fortunes in November, unmarried women are the biggest and best opportunity. Right now, these are votes on the table

What unmarried women (widows, never-marrieds and divorcées) share—and what makes them lean so heavily for Democrats—is being on their own, vulnerable economically, at a time when jobs that pay enough to live on are very scarce. That is the main finding of the research we have conducted over the last couple of years. For most Americans, the economy is a challenge every day.

[O]ur research shows that what motivates them to vote are economic issues, particularly those that affect working women and mothers. In Virginia, much of the Democrats’ advertising was focused on abortion and contraception and no doubt increased Democratic support, but it did not raise turnout among unmarried women.

The take away for Democrats is that they must not only stress the issues of equal pay and contraception/abortion, but they must also stress that the Democrats are better for economic prosperity for all and that it is GOP obstructionism/policies that have  deliberately held America;s economy back as the GOP sought to destroy Barack Obama - and millions of Americans along with him.

The GOP's Problem With Unmarried Women

Given the GOP's war on women in general, it is little surprise that Ken Cuccinelli lost the women vote by at least 9 points.  The big surprise was, however, that he lost the vote of unmarried women by 42 points.  Yes, 42 points.  This loss makes Mitt Romney's deficit with these women voters look good in comparison.  Apparently, Cuccinelli's obsession with regulating women's private parts - when he wasn't obsessing about gay sex - came back to bite him in the ass big time.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the GOP's growing problem with unmarried woman voters.  Here are excerpts:

The real problem for Republicans going forward is not women broadly but single women in particular. Governor-elect Terry McAuliffe spent most of his campaign time — and money — casting Ken Cuccinelli as a zealot on social issues like abortion and contraception in the just-concluded Virginia race.

[A]ccording to exit polls, Cuccinelli only lost female voters by nine points — identical to the losing margin for Mitt Romney among women in Virginia in the 2012 presidential election. (Romney lost women nationally by 11 points to President Obama in 2012.)

Where Cuccinelli did get swamped, however, was among non-married women where he lost by a massive 42-point(!) margin, according to preliminary exit polling. While Romney didn’t fare that poorly in 2012, his 29-point loss among non-married women in Virginia was more than double his losing margin among women more broadly in the Commonwealth.

Here’s the two-pronged problem for Republicans: 1) They aren’t winning married women by nearly enough to make up for their huge deficits among unmarried women and 2) There aren’t that many more married women than single women in the electorate to make up the margins.

(Worth noting: The married/unmarried divide isn’t just among women.  Cuccinelli won married men by six points but lost single men by 25.)

But, it’s clear from the Virginia data — as well as the 2012 presidential results — that Republicans must find a way to lose single women by a far less wide margin if they want to close a gender gap that it making it increasingly difficult for them to be a majority party nationally in presidential elections.

More reseach will need to be done, but perhaps the unmarried men and women are younger and, therefore, less accepting of Cuccinelli's - and the GOP's - religious extremism and regressive approach to social issues.