If Democrats are looking to pick up women voters, their best bet is to focus on single women.
A new study from Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research shows that unmarried women favor Democratic candidates by a 67 to 28 percent margin, compared to their married counterparts who lean Republican by a margin of 52 percent to 40 percent.
The survey suggest that the political geneder gap is less based on gender than on marital status. In fact, Page Gardner, president of Women’s Voices says the notion of a gender gap is a fallacy.
“The idea that you can look at women as one voting block is just wrong,” she told National Journal. “If one group of women votes largely for Democrats and another large group of women vote largely for Republicans, it doesn’t make sense for them to be considered one voting bloc.” Without the marriage gap, she said, there wouldn't be much of a gender gap to talk about.
Gardner said unmarried women support Democrats for a number of reasons including the party’s history of support for unemployment benefits and tax credits for children. The survey results carry some hope for Democrats who are trailing in many polls. Gardner said that because unmarried women tend not to focus on elections until late in the season, they are less likely to buy into the early campaign narratives. In this case it may mean that they have not yet embraced the idea that the Democrats have already lost these elections.
“This group of voters also tends to decide on candidates much later in the process which could make them the game changers this election cycle,” Gardner said in a press release.
Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund has bought advertising in Colorado and Maine to oppose the GOP nominee for Senate in Colorado, Ken Buck, and Maine GOP House hopeful Dean Scontras.
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