Before election, Anna Greenberg wrote an analysis claiming that the existence of security moms — married women who would vote for Bush because of their concerns about terrorism — was largely a myth. But after the election, even the National Organization for Women seemed to concede that such women played an important role in George W. Bush’s re-election.
The bottom line is that John Kerry did horribly with women, especially if you believe as the National Organization for Women president Kim Gandy does that, “Our health, our rights, and our democracy are teetering on the brink” due to Bush’s re-election.
Whereas Al Gore won 54 percent of the vote in 2000, Kerry managed only 51 percent to Bush’s 48 percent among women. In four years in which Bush, according to NOW, placed the very health and rights of women at risk, Bush improved his share of women voters by 5 percent.
What explains the increase? NOW issued a press release shortly after the election blaming security moms,
The gender gap did, in fact, decline from its 10 point spread in 2000 for Al Gore. Women’s leaders speculate that the Bush campaign’s intense focus on security, and their active courting of women voters, drew additional support to the Republican ticket. However, the research shows that, for women, security is more than averting terrorist attacks:
“We need to broaden the dialogue about security,” said Lake. Issues such as preventing violence against women, equal pay, health care and social security are all of vital interest to women and progressive voters.
The shift of a small percentage of women’s votes to Bush occurred most notably among white women, married women and older women. Still, within these groups, women demonstrated less support for Bush than their male counterparts.
As the Washington Times noted in an op-ed, however, the very idea of a gender gap is a bit silly since it is, in fact, largely a racial gap. As the Times notes, except for Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election, Republican candidates have won a majority of white women in all presidential elections beginning in 1980, but Democratic candidates receive the overwhelming percentage of votes cast by minority women.
So, to get a more precise understanding of how women have responded to the Democratic message, let’s examine how white women have been voting since 1980. In the seven elections beginning with 1980, Democratic presidential candidates have received an average of 46 percent of the white-women two-party vote. Republicans have collected an average of 54 percent. Bill Clinton’s re-election in 1996 was the only time a Democratic candidate received a majority (53 percent in 1996) of the white-women two-party vote. Mr. Reagan received 57 percent in 1980 and 62 percent in 1984. (Mrs. Smeal’s dream ticket of Mondale-Ferraro captured a mere 38 percent of the white-women vote.) George H.W. Bush got 57 percent in 1988 and 50 percent in his 1992 losing campaign. George W. Bush received 51 percent of the white women’s two-party vote in 2000 and 55 percent in 2004. Thus, beginning with the 1980 election, Bob Dole has been the only Republican candidate who has failed to win a majority of the white-women two-party vote. Since white feminists comprise the largest voting bloc based on gender and race, the repeated failure of Mrs. Smeal and her cohorts to deliver helps to explain why Democrats have lost five of the last seven presidential elections.
So why do white women vote majority democratic? After all, John Kerry tried to make sexual inequality a theme of his campaign late in the campaign, citing the wage gap between men and women in one of his debates with Bush. Conservative critics of feminism suggest that the problem is that feminists are out-of-touch with the mainstream,
Another conservative analyst of women’s issues, Carrie Lukas of the Independent Women’s Forum, said feminists “have increasingly marginalized themselves” by embracing an agenda that doesn’t reflect most American women’s priorities.
“They see government as the answer to all problems – as the national health care provider and day care provider,” Lukas said. “And they have made unfettered access to abortion the absolute centerpiece of their movement… Their ‘March for Women’s Lives’ last year seemed like a celebration of abortion.”
I’m not so sure about women rejecting big government, but suspect she’s on to something about the feminist movement’s obsessive focus on abortion. Groups like NOW often seem to focus almost exclusively on abortion, but the issue is surprisingly not a big factor in women’s voter preference. In an open-ended question in exit polls in the 2000 election, for example, only 4 percent of women listed abortion as an important factor in determining who they voted for.
In exit polls in 2004, surprisingly large numbers of pro-abortion supporters actually voted for Bush, although Kerry won the vast majority of pro-abortion voters. Bush won 25 percent of the votes of people who believe that abortion should be legal in all cases, and 38 percent of the votes of people who believe that abortion should be legal in most cases.
Sources:
Gender gap myths and legends. The Washington Times, December 18, 2004.
Feminists face tough time after election. David Crary, Associated Press, January 9, 2005.
Gender Gap Persists in the 2004 Election. Votes for Women 2004, Press Release, November 5, 2004.
Women Voters Maintain Gender Gap in 2004 Elections. Lisa Bennett, National Organization for Women, November 12, 2004.
The Security Mom Myth. Anna Greenberg, September 30, 2004.