Politics

At Take Back America this spring, Women's Voices Women Votes' Page Gardener discussed the importance of the unmarried women vote in 2008. One of her main points was that for the first time ever, there are almost as many unmarried women as married women, both at around 26% of the voting age population. Not only is this one of the fastest growing demographics in the country (10 million more unmarried women today than there were in 2000), but they turn out in smaller numbers than their married counterparts and are traditionally more likely to vote Democratic if they do turn out. For example married women voted for Bush over Kerry in 2004 55-44 whereas unmarried women voted for Kerry 62-37.

The importance of the unmarried women vote for Democrats in 2008 is underscored by the stunning results of a new poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for the Women's Voices, Women Vote Action Fund of 1,004 unmarried women in battleground states. The states polled included Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The results via press release:

A poll released today shows Obama leading by 32 points over McCain with unmarried women, with Obama besting McCain 61 to 29.  The poll demonstrates the importance of marital status in political choices - Obama leads by only 1 point with married women (polling 49-48 against McCain), a "marriage gap" of 31 points.  The poll, conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for Women's Voices Women Vote Action Fund, also shows no significant drop in support for Obama among unmarried women after Hillary Clinton left the race.

Obama has a particular advantage among unmarried women on the issues they care about:

When presented with each candidate's policies, unmarried women favor Obama over McCain on equal pay for women (73-19, a 54 point difference), on Iraq (67-27, a 40 point difference), and on access to abortion services (66 to 27, a 40 point difference).  Other distinguishing issues are health care (unmarried women favor Obama's policies 59 to 25, a 34 point margin), the economy (60 to 29, a 31 point margin), and gas prices (53 to 34, a 19 point margin).

And post-primary, while unmarried women have largely united behind Obama as the Democratic nominee, there is still significant room for growth among Hillary's core constituencies:

Among unmarried women, Obama is weakest with white seniors and white women without a college education.  While 56 percent of white senior unmarried women are Democrats or lean Democrat, only 48 percent are backing Obama, an eight point margin.  Among unmarried white women with no college education, 54 percent are or lean Democratic, but 44 percent back Obama, a 10 point margin.

Greenberg's conclusion:

Sometimes politics comes down to simple math. Unmarried women represent the nation's largest progressive base group and, according to current data, will support Barack Obama by at minimum 2:1 in November. Increasing their turnout--as a proportion of the total electorate - by 3-points will increase Obama's vote share by 2 points, unless views on the candidates change. In other words, rather than comprising 22 percent of the vote share, they would make up 24 percent of the vote share. Recall that they make up 26 percent of the voting age population - this simple math suggests that in unmarried women we will likely see the biggest potential gain in the progressive base.

The fight for swing groups like married women is important, but any progressive's overall margin among women depends on the continued loyalty and enthusiasm of unmarried women.

Count unmarried women among the demographic sleeping giants that Democrats, in an unprecedented coordinated effort, are poised to turn out in record numbers this fall, which will benefit not only Obama but our Democrats running all up and down the ticket.

I'm back!  

As always, I've returned to more brilliant diaries than will reasonably fit in a single rescue. Many thanks to those who kept watch and sent recommends despite my absence. Enjoy.

• Chino Blanco has been Googling Gay Marriage: Putting a Fork in Prop 8.
• A Couple Updates, Including My Deployment, from our resident USArmyParatrooper, headed to Iraq.
• A small diary, but huge news from Joe Garcia with Thank You - You Beat Him.
• Conservatives Conflicted On Whether Georgia Can Turn Blue. (andrewalker08)
• Bobswern marks the day, 7/21/08: Wherein Rove and McCain violate campaign laws.
• Gavin Newsom Torpedoes CA-Gov Bid at Netroots Nation. (Bob Brigham)
• Swift-boating returns, says NeciVelez in Bossie to Release Right-Wing Bash Obama Film "Hype."
• A sobering diary by ItsNeverOver: 8,763 Disabled Veterans Died Without Receiving Benefits.
• Media obsession or cultural "landslide"?  Election wants to discuss The Myth of the Reagan Revolution.
• Republican Vet group with "25,000 Members" But Only 5 Donors? Is This The New Math? (Dave Johnson and James Boyce)
• Excusing illegal behavior in Project Vote's Conservatives Claim Enforcing Voting Rights Is Too Hard.
• Steve "It's Only Hazing" King Embarrasses Self, Iowa Again. (Texas Nate)
• What if 6 hours of VHS tape could've saved you 17 years in prison?  Jeff Miller and The Justice Project argue for Advancing Justice With Recorded Interrogations.
• OH-16: Small Donors Back Record-Breaking Boccieri Quarter. (Greg Roach)
• As Goes California Healthcare Reform, So Goes the Nation. (California Nurses Shum)

AP - John McCain can be a Berliner, too.

A couple weeks ago, the DCCC revealed the 31 races they're targeting with $35 million worth of ad buys this fall (so far the time is just reserved, not bought.) The list consisted of 11 Democratic incumbents and one Dem open seat where the committee would be going on defense; the rest are seats currently held by the GOP.

We really have an embarrassment of riches this year, especially considering how many seats we took last cycle, but thanks to a plethora of GOP retirements and a favorable political environment for Democrats, whereas the DCCC's 2007 goal was to put 35-40 GOP seats in play, the 2008 reality is that there are actually 62 seats the DCCC considers competitive. So, it is not surprising to see the list of races where the DCCC is reserving ad time expand by 20 seats for a total of $53 million in 51 districts.

From Swing State Project:

AL-02 (Open): $598K
AL-05 (Open): $678K
AZ-08 (Giffords - D): $705K
CA-04 (Open) & CA-11 (McNerney - D): $2.03M
FL-18 (Ros-Lehtinen - R), FL-21 (L. Diaz-Balart - R) and FL-25 (M. Diaz Balart - R): $1.4M
ID-01 (Sali - R): $349K
IL-10 (Kirk - R): $1.4M
IL-11 (Weller - R): $1.6M
IL-14 (Foster - D): $1.02M
LA-04 (Open): $714K
MO-06 (Graves - R): $798K
MS-01 (Childers - D): $1.06M
NJ-03 (Open): $1.7M
NY-25 (Open), NY-26 (Open), NY-29 (Kuhl - R): $2.7M
WA-08 (Reichert - R): $949,000

Chris Cilizza breaks it down:

When examining all 51 districts in which the DCCC has so far reserved ad time, 34 of the districts (66 percent) are Republican held while the remaining 17 are controlled by Democrats.

Unlike elections past, however, House Democrats are focusing as much on incumbents as open seats. Of the 34 Republican seats, 17 are open while 17 are held by members. That speaks to the treacherous national environment in which the GOP currently finds itself with a far larger number of incumbents in jeopardy than previous elections.

Great to see they intend to compete hard for Darcy, Charlie Brown and Eric Massa among others. And it's good to see the DCCC is as bullish on those 3 southern Florida seats as I am after meeting Annette Taddeo and Joe Garcia at Netroots Nation.

AP - Quotes from Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee-in-waiting.

AP - Quotes from John McCain, the Republican nominee-in-waiting.

AP - If the presidential election were decided by speeches alone, it would be over already.

A new PPP poll (pdf) shows Obama up two percentage points over McCain in Virginia, 46-44% (7/17-20, 1327LVs, MoE +/- 2.7%). But in the crosstabs, there's an indication Obama's support has more room to grow (via TPM):

The poll has McCain winning white voters by a 53%-36% margin, much narrower than George W. Bush's 68%-32% margin in 2004. Curiously, the poll also has Obama ahead 77%-16% among black voters...

Obama's margin among black voters is creeping up. In PPP's Virginia poll conducted a month ago, Obama led McCain among black voters 67-32%. By the time all is said and done, I wouldn't at all be surprised to see that number top 90%.

Update [2008-7-23 12:22:14 by Josh Orton]: In the comments, fladem points out to CNN's 2004 exit poll of Virginia, which shows that Kerry won the black vote 87 - 12. Can't see Obama doing worse than that.