It’s like women paid no attention to the GOP war on Women:
Mitt Romney leads President Obama by four percentage points among likely voters in the nation’s top battlegrounds, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, and he has growing enthusiasm among women to thank.
As the presidential campaign heads into its final weeks, the survey of voters in 12 crucial swing states finds female voters much more engaged in the election and increasingly concerned about the deficit and debt issues that favor Romney. The Republican nominee has pulled within one point of the president among women who are likely voters, 48%-49%, and leads by 8 points among men.
Then again, when the corporate media spend all the time in debates asking about Simpson Bowles and spends no time on the radical postions that RMoney, Ryan, and the GOP have taken regarding women, I guess it should not be surprising. But hey, let them vote for Paulie Walnuts Mitt Romney. Since women live longer than men, they’ll have lots of time to regret their vote as they negotiate the Romney/Ryan voucher program.
Corner Stone
Women! Sheesh!
PeakVT
Skewed polling!
fuckwit
Nobody who is not a rich, white, straight, christian male should be voting for RMoney.
That’s really all it is. Anyone else does so at their own peril.
General Stuck
I wouldn’t put too much credence in one poll on the state of wimmen folk and how they will vote. I think pollsters are having fits on how to weight their polls for likely voters these days, as well as a bunch of other factors mostly occurring around who answers their calls on any given day.
I don’t believe it is 50 50 right now for how the ladies plan to vote. And tomorrow night, Mitt Romney isn’t going to get away with his whoppers like last time. Single polling of a bunch of swing states is next to worthless, imo.
TaMara (BHF)
I for one am undecided. It is all too confusing and all that thinking, it messes with my curls. Best to listen to what the white menfolk say.
And besides Obama has failed me, neither my Obama/Biden bumper sticker nor my magnet have yet to arrive. I expect them to show up on Nov 7th.
DPS
Nate Silver thinks that this specific data is stupid and “largely useless.”
If Romney ties Obama with women, I will eat my own face.
TaMara (BHF)
Here’s your moment of zen: Fall Bike Ride Photos
The colors have been spectacular this year. And all that cycling keeps my ass-ets in fine form. Since there has been some speculation…
The Dangerman
Inexplicable, indeed.
Also, inexplicable; why I thought that the Chargers being up 24 at the half meant game over. I should have far more faith in Philip “Pick 6” Rivers to fuck up a game.
Biggest comeback in MNF history and I missed it (that I may have missed it for Navy Gangnam style hurts even more).
PurpleGirl
I have abso-fucking-lutely no idea why a any woman would vote for Romney. The only thing I can think of is a fantasy of being rescued and saved and then being secure in some way. Because if any woman really thought through what Romney-Ryan are saying about deficits and budgets and taxes, no woman comes out secure and safe. And of course, the Republican war on women should be telling women that the power that be males only want to control them.
Violet
I will never vote for a Republican again. Never. Those misogynist racists can go fuck themselves.
PurpleGirl
@TaMara (BHF): Lovely pictures.
kindness
Polls. Who wants to read what into whatever?
I figure women who use birth control know. The hard core Christians & Republicans will vote R no matter if Romney announced he was the antichrist. I myself think he isn’t smart enough, but that’s just a dfh’s perspective.
Tractarian
@PeakVT:
Not skewed, but definitely out of date.
The USAToday/Gallup swing state poll was taken from October 5-11; i.e., soon after the Denver debate, when Dems were practically suicidal. On the other hand, the ABC/WaPo poll which came out yesterday and showed O+3, was done between Oct. 10-13.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I remember watching clips of Ann Romney talking about how its moms who stay home with sick kids, and daughters who take care of aging parents, and thinking, yeah, and your fuckwit of a husband wants to gut every program that makes those things a little easier for those women.
TexasMango
MSM’s new strategy now that the Romney bounce is receeding: Find and outlier and report on it to keep the horse race going.
mclaren
I dunno, looks to me like your headline ought to be:
WOMEN ARE MUCH SMARTER THAN MEN WHEN IT COMES TO ROMNEY.
I mean…dude, the men are supporting Romney by 9% more than the women. Tells me the womenz is sharp, the menfolk is stupid.
Another Halocene Human
Do they mean with white women? Because if he’s ahead with women and men, he should be leading in the BG states and he’s not.
Hate to break it to folks, but that crucial transgendered vote is only 1%
aaaaaand I question how much they’re breaking for R/R anyway
“Trouble paying for plastic surgery? Why not ask your husband for a loan?”
dance around in your bones
You just have to be brain-dead to vote Repub if you is a woman. Full stop. Period. That is all.
I had a dream last night where I was arguing the same thing. Yes. I read Balloon Juice maybe too much, but prolly not.
jharp
Makes no sense to me at all. None.
And Peyton Manning was back to himself albeit with a different team.
Some kind of extraordinary player.
barath
I’m surprised there isn’t more noise being made about how Candy Crowley has basically announced that she’s going to throw the debate for Romney.
I know, that’s not what most folks read into the reports that she’s going to take over the debate instead of letting the audience ask the questions. But has Crowley ever seen a GOP talking point she doesn’t like?
Mike
Nate’s already debunked this poll. Each “swing state” had on average 86 folks responding. That’s not going to cut it. Plus, they had a seven point gap between registered and likely voters. ABC had a poll out this weekend saying the exact opposite, with us leading swing states by over 6 points, but that gets ignored by even their friggin’ sponsor!
TexasMango
There were also polls showing Willard with ridiculously high percentages of black and Latino votes in swing states.
The poll is old and like a lot of polls that came out two weeks ago, it’s pull shit. Gotta push that narrative.
FlipYrWhig
I can sort of see the idea that someone might watch the debate and think, “Hey, maybe this Romney isn’t so bad after all. He knows his stuff and doesn’t seem like the impression I got from the media.”. In other words, not that Obama turned people off — despite the Sullivan riffs — but that Romney turned people on. (ew!) But, come the fuck on. There’s no way women are swinging towards Romney anywhere.
TexasMango
@barath: I don’t trust her all. She should let the audience ask questions randomly and sit her fat ass down.
Brachiator
Look on the bright side, we may not have to worry about domestic issues after the election.
The Israeli government has dissolved its parliament and will hold a general election on January 22. Bibi expects to pick up more seats.
The incoming US president, hopefully Obama, may have an immediate foreign policy crisis to deal with.
Israel sets date for early poll
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19957764
These polls are crazy, which is again why I think the only rational response is to forget about them, and concentrate on political contributions and getting out the vote.
However, it may be that some voters are telling themselves that Romney will govern like a moderate no matter what he says in order to win. These people also ignore his previous capitulations to the right and what it says about his lack of courage. These people are also assuming that Romney will stand up to a right wing Israeli government.
Even though he will have the Bush foreign policy team by his side.
And the women Romney supporters apparently believe that he is a good white man who will take care of them as well as he takes care of his own good white wife.
Hopefully, none of them will have to deal with an unexpected pregnancy or hefty medical bill if Romney is elected.
Clear choices, and yet a core of voters insist on doubling down on the crazy.
I’m-believable. Unpossible. And yet, here we are.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I remember I liked Candy Crowley a long time ago. I think the whole 9/11- Iraq War- Kerry campaign wore down whatever intelligence and integrity she once had, but I haven’t watched CNN in years
TaMara (BHF)
@PurpleGirl: Thanks. Mother Nature did most of the work,
Redshift
@TexasMango:
In other words, we have lots of media figures who don’t understand that subgroups have a much higher margin of error than the overall poll (and the smaller the subsample, the bigger it is.)
Hill Dweller
I just wish at some point Obama would look into the camera and ask, “Are you really going to elect a guy that has made millions of dollars shipping American jobs to other countries?”.
James E. Powell
I will not even attempt to say that I know what women voters think and I’m not even sure it is useful to talk about “women voters” as if they were a voting bloc.
I do recall that something like 25% of women who identified themselves as “pro-choice” voted for Bush/Cheney in 2004. Why that was more than 1% I will never understand.
I have spoken about this with women in my social and professional circles. Anecdotal, I know, but I asked questions and I got answers. They told me that
– Many women do not believe that the right-wing war on birth control or abortion rights will affect them personally so it is not high on their list of reasons to vote for one or the other;
– Many women are “pro-choice” but it is not on their top ten list of things that they care about;
– Many women are not really aware of how different Republicans and Democrats are on birth control and abortion rights;
– Many women are not really aware of the “War on Women” and do not believe it even after it is explained with data and quotes.
My exasperation and frustration at this is but a fraction of that felt and expressed by the women I know who are politically active or at least politically charged in their social and professional lives. They tell me that they do not know what to do about it.
piratedan
well msn.com is promoting the idea where the town hall environment works for Mitt. Which is strange when stacked against how he comes across in public. But understanding the assumption that women believe themselves to be out of control and actually need government regulation of their lady bits is an incredible leap that I wish was also evident in the Insurance industry as well as the oil companies, not to mention our financial betters and their NY Casino.
Kane
In every election, voters have one opportunity to use their I don’t believe this poll card.
I’m using mine now.
RaflW
OT, but I’m just ready to rip some people’s heads off. The disgraced former top staffer to the disgraced former MN House speaker is now able to do interviews, and he comes right out and says it:
The MN GOP was really worried that Amy Klobuchar is so popular that her coat-tails would wipe out the Republicans in the MN lege. That’s the strategy for going ahead with the anti-gay, anti-marriage amendment.
Now, this is not news to anyone who followed turdblossoms 2004 strategy. But still, to hear it from the man who engineered the bill to protect the “sanctity of marriage” on behalf of his boss – while they were fucking in the office – is beyond even the high level of base cynicism and hypocrisy I can stomach from the GOP.
If these craven lowlifes win, I’ma movin out of this shit-hole country. Its utterly fucked, utterly depraved, and utterly, bitterly disappointing.
Suffern ACE
There are going to be lots of polls like this until Election Day. I wouldn’t use them as an excuse to start flinging insults at groups who one might want to vote or change their minds back. Unfortunately there isn’t much else the press is going to report on except debates and polls that fit the narrative.
Spaghetti Lee
The last GOPer to win the female vote was GHWB in ’88. So either there’s been some inexplicable regression in womens’ politics over the last 20 years, or this poll is crap. Going by what others here have said, I’m going with the second option.
ETA: Seems like just a week ago we were bashing people who were freaking out over some bad polls. If y’all are going to freak out over every questionable poll, you’re going to have a long-ass 3 weeks. I’d bet next month’s rent on Romney not winning women.
Yutsano
@Spaghetti Lee: Yeah, I’m gonna go with bupkess too.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@TaMara (BHF):
Thanks for that. What beautiful country.
Spaghetti Lee
@RaflW:
2012 ain’t 2004 as far as gay rights go. Now, not to say the bad guys couldn’t win: they’ve got exploiting the Hate Vote down to a science by now. But I’d be relunctant to say ‘It’s 2004 all over again!’ myself.
slag
My most recent worst nightmare (yes, I had an actual nightmare about this very concept) is being realized in this poll, and consequently, I’m inclined to dismiss it as a figment of my own imagination. And, for the record, I’m not particularly thrilled about having you all in my dreams.
RaflW
@barath: I don’t watch cable news, so this helps me understand why the Obama campaign wanted the moderator to basically stay out of it.
Anonymous
@James E. Powell:
I didn’t need much of a reason to break out a drink, but this is a pretty damn good one.
gwangung
Personally, I think some political operatives are gaming some of the aggregate polls. New outfits, with no track records, hitting swing states with thin coverage from standard pollsters, are a gold mine for political operatives to use to game coverage.
Narcissus
I don’t understand what’s going on in politics right now
Also it seems the Romney campaign is taking their debate approach to commercials. I’ve seen several commercials with Mitt just looking at the camera spouting unadulterated bullshit for thirty seconds
I think ignorant people are buying it
Brachiator
@Redshift:
RE: There were also polls showing Willard with ridiculously high percentages of black and Latino votes in swing states.
No, this is just bad sampling and data analysis. Any poll that shows Romney getting more than 1 to 2 percent of black votes in swing states is clearly defective. And given that most polls show that 70 percent or more of Latinos favor Obama over Romney, any pollster worth his or her bones would seriously look at any results that showed some Latino surge toward Romney in swing states.
Asian Americans are usually not included in broad based polls because their numbers are too small to be reliably sampled (exit polls excluded), but that’s another story for another day.
@James E. Powell:
Good stuff. But I wonder how many swing states are also states where governors and state legislators are seeking to restrict abortion.
I guess I can see that some women might, just might, think that they will not be affected by a war on women. But Red states would see a Romney victory as a green light to go for an attack on abortion and contraception in general.
I guess I could see that some women, like some men, are narrowly focusing on the issue of jobs and the economy. And the analysis behind some of these polls indicate that the women surveyed are paying close attention to the candidates.
Maybe Romney’s smiling, phony BS is working with some voters who are understandably worried about their job prospects, and unwilling to give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt.
It would be hugely unfortunate if Romney is making inroads among these voters. I guess we shall see.
Hob
@Hill Dweller: Have you seen any of Obama’s ads? He’s said almost exactly that.
TenguPhule
There are people out there who get sexually excited by having sex with corpses, human excrement and children.
Forget understanding them, get rid of them.
Joey Maloney
@Brachiator: Regarding Israeli elections: guess what percentage of Bibi’s campaign funding comes from overseas (non-Israeli) donors. Go ahead, guess.
According to Haaretz, over 98%. And he’s not the only one.
bemused
@RaflW:
Yup, Republicans have always cynically used the social issues to rile up their “values” voters but it’s good to hear Brodkorb, a self-serving jerk, say it out loud. I hope that gets a lot of coverage and I plan to send it around everywhere although I doubt many Republican voters will be upset by the admission. They admire Republicans who play that way.
I also think Brodkorb had a fling with Amy Koch to further his own ambitions.
@James E. Powell:
I agree with all your points. Too many women are not paying attention and have no clue they or their daughters/granddaughters their rights to choice and contraceptives are in such danger of disappearing.
moot23
Jesus Fucking Christ John. Mitt STILL trails by 1% with women, leads by 8% with men, and your headline is that the ladies are inexplicably not unsupporting Romney enough?
Those with twat are roughly 10% smarter than those with cock and balls, and that’s still not enough?
Bite me old man.
You can not believe how fucking exhausting your bullshit is.
Steve
@moot23: Being smarter in the aggregate than men is a low bar. But in this case, where there’s actually a legislative war against one gender and not the other, it’s also a pretty irrelevant measure.
If I may Godwin the thread, it would be pretty amazing if a poll came out showing that half the Jews plan to vote for Hitler. You wouldn’t say, oh, but they’re 10% smarter than the Gentiles, so it’s okay!
Laura
Yes, we women are generally the more intelligent sex, but there’s still a whole bunch of idiots among us.
Paul
After all that’s happened during the last 6 months, it is beyond comprehension that any woman would vote for Romney. He belongs to the party that wants to get rid of the Domestic Violence Act for crying out loud.
But to each her own. Good luck to you women who vote for him. You are the ones who will have to live with the consequences.
scott
I don’t think the complete radio silence maintained by Obama about women in the first debate was particularly helpful, either. We can talk about his record or his ads, but his best opportunity to assure them that he gets their concerns and will act on them is when he gets a free shot to communicate directly to 50-70 million Americans in prime time. I hope he takes advantage this time.
pseudonymous in nc
Others beat me to it: Nate Silver’s piece today about “battleground” subsampling is required reading before trying to draw grand conclusions from this kind of polling data — the samples are shit, each pollster’s definition of “battleground states” varies (so one might be classing Missouri as a battleground while another isn’t) and when you get into further subsamples (i.e. women) you’re dealing with a sample set that you can fit in a small car.
State polls, national headline numbers: those are the things to look at. Everything else is bullshit poll product designed to manufacture trends, differentiate pollsters from the pack, and give the hacks something to guff about.
liberal
@Violet:
You’ve voted for a Republican?
McJulie
@FlipYrWhig:
Yup. Romney can seem very “presidential” if you don’t pay attention to what he says, and he had that turned on during the debate. I see all the poll movement as people who wanted to vote Republican, but hadn’t lined up behind Romney yet because he seemed so incompetent.
Which is another piece of evidence for the “Romney = Republican John Kerry.” I felt that Kerry’s good debate performance did an excellent job… at making the Democrats and liberals who were already going to vote for him feel better about doing so.
McJulie
@scott:
Unfortunately, debate content is limited a bit by the questions that get asked. I don’t recall any questions or handy segues that would have allowed Obama to talk about women’s issues without it seeming weird and off-topic, and therefore running the danger of coming across as pandering, and backfiring.
The question about abortion and Catholicism at the end of the VP debate was just about perfect, in that it allowed both candidates to succinctly express their party’s different positions.
Maybe something like that.
scott
@McJulie: I think skilled politicians can turn any conversation (especially if it relates to a semi-related general topic like the economy) and apply it to (fill in the blank) struggling single mom, career woman, recent female college graduate, etc. It’s a staple of those moments when the candidate says that he talked to x or y or z real person a few days ago, who told him……….. I think if you know what you’re doing, the debate isn’t a straitjacket but can be used very elastically to communicate whatever you want to communicate. He should use it and not give up a priceless opportunity to say the things he needs to say to the whole country.
Brachiator
@Joey Maloney:
This is not as meaningful as you might think, but thanks for trying.
Beezus Quimby
Check out this:
Women Who Love Republicans Who Hate Them
What’s the matter with them? Do they have Stockholm syndrome?
http://www.thenation.com/article/169630/women-who-love-republicans-who-hate-them