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Democrats have long had an electoral advantage among women, particularly among single and suburban professional women, that has helped propel them to victory in elections both in presidential and non-presidential years. In 2008, for example, exit polling showed thatPresident Obama won women by 56% to 49%;and in 2012,the breakdown was 55% to 44%.The reasons for the disparity in these elections, and in many others at the national, state, and local level, have been the subject of speculation for decades, ever since the so-called gender gap was first noticed. Among the factors that have been cited has been the fact that women tend to have more liberal views on economic and pocketbook issues and tend to support a less aggressive foreign policy, although that last one doesnt really apply to the Democratic Party in the age of Obama, and, of course, the fact that the Republican Parrys stance on social issues, as well as debacles like 2012's comments by various candidates about abortion and rape and the comments of many on the right about birth control issues, have turned women off to the party as a whole. That doesnt mean that Republicans cant do well among women, of course. Ronald Reaganwon the womens vote quite handily in his 1984 landslide,for example, andGeorge H.W. Bush won it narrowly in his smaller 1988 landslide.More recently, just last year, Chris Christie won the womensvote in deep blue New Jersey by twelve points. In 2010,Republicans won women by a narrow 1%on the way to taking control of the House. Now, as we head into a midterm that could hand control of the Senate,President Obamas problems with women, which seem to have come out of nowhere, threaten to hurt his party:

Female voters powered President Barack Obamas victory over Mitt Romney in 2012, as Democrats leaned heavily on social issues to rally single women and suburban moms to the polls.

But with two weeks until Election Day, the presidents diminished standing with women is quickly becoming one of the biggest liabilities facing Democrats as they struggle to hang onto the Senate majority.

In battleground states across the country, Obama is underwater with female voters especially women unaffiliated with a political party and its making it harder for Democrats to take advantage of the gender gap, according to public polling and Democratic strategists.

Already Democrats are taking a beating from men, who back Republicans over Democrats by double digits in most of the key Senate races. But to overcome that deficit, Democrats need to win over female voters by a wider margin in battleground states like Colorado, Iowa, Alaska, North Carolina and New Hampshire. That task that will be the primary focus of Democratic campaigns as they prepare an intensive voter-turnout operation.

First, they must overcome the Obama factor. After defeating Mitt Romney by 11 points among women in 2012, the president has seen his approval rating drop sharply with females, particularly in the battleground states.

In Alaska, for instance, Obama lost soundly in 2008 and 2012. But hes only gone downhill from there, especially among female voters, only 29 percent of whom give him high marks. Obamas unpopularity could be having a spillover effect on Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), who is fighting for his political life against Republican Dan Sullivan. In one recent CNN/ORC poll of likely voters, Begich was losing women to Sullivan by 7 points.

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According to a Quinnipiac poll this week, Democratic Sen. Mark Udall was trailing by 19 points to his GOP challenger, Rep. Cory Gardner, among male voters. In that poll and a new CNN poll, the Republican was down only 9 points among women. In 2010, when Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet barely beat GOP candidate Ken Buck, the Democrat won female voters by 17 points and lost men by 10, according to exit polls. Most Democrats believe Udall needs a similar advantage to win.

But the presidents sharp decline in Colorado has made life much harder for Udall. The CNN poll showed 60 percent of white women disapproving of Obamas job performance and 56 percent of nonwhite women also holding negative views. Just two years ago, Obama outperformed Romney in Colorado, 51-49 percent, among female voters, according to exit polls, as the president carried the state.

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Obama's diminished standing among women is hurting Democrats in the midterms

Oct 21, 2014 9:07am

By MICHAEL FALCONE (@michaelpfalcone)

NOTABLES

THE ROUNDTABLE

ABCs RICK KLEIN: His feelings will be the least of his worries, if the Senate winds up tipping. President Obamas latest comments linking endangered Democrats with his agenda these are all folks who vote with me was hardly a necessary link for 2014. His previous comments -not to mention the Democrats own voting records made that connection quite effectively. But the presidents moves to hammer that point home, and taking personal responsibility for making sure that our voters turn out, ensure that the comments will be remembered in 2015 and 2016, too. The quotes are teed up for post-election analyses. The president is putting himself, and his agenda, more explicitly on the line. If voters reject the candidates, it follows that theyre rejecting his agenda in Congress. Those judgments, of course, last two years Obamas last in office.

ABCs JOHN PARKINSON: Wal-Mart Moms, identified as women who shop at the super chain at least once a month with a child under 18-years-old, believe Washington is out of touch. In two focus groups in battlegrounds in Charlotte, N.C. and New Orleans, La., none of the women, who largely considered themselves independents and undecided voters, knew much about the candidates despite millions of dollars in advertising. They think its a choice between the lesser of two evils. These swing voters make up between 14 to 17 percent of the electorate, according to Public Opinion Strategies. All expressed negative views of the direction the country is heading, particularly on foreign affairs and border security. The women had a lot of questions about Ebola. They think the government doesnt have it under control but dont believe Ebola will likely infect them. They arent flying. They want the president to ban travel from the region. The CDC is behind the ball, and the government is playing catch up. While the women who participated in the focus groups have an overwhelmingly negative perception of Congress, none held such deep opinions about the candidates on the ballot in two weeks. Instead, they plan to cram for Election Day like a test, googling the information they need to make a decision the night before they head to the polls.

ABCs JEFF ZELENY: The National Republican Senatorial Committee believes it has found another way to tie Democrats to President Obama: Ebola. Their press releases today come with these screaming headlines: Grimes Defers to Obama on Ebola. Nunn Defers to Obama on Ebola. Hagan Defers to Obama on Ebola. And on and on, throughout the roster of top Senate races across the country. But is the GOP overplaying its hand? While Ebola may be the October surprise of the fall campaign largely because its October and there has yet to be another surprise its hard to imagine that the outbreak moves any voters. To fire up the base, sure, its another way to hammer the president. But undecided voters, if there are truly any who remain, could surely be turned off by the crass political treatment of a deadly outbreak. If its too soon to crack jokes about Ebola, is it too soon to blatantly politicize it?

THE MIDTERM MINUTE

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Not What Democrats Needed To Hear

On Nov. 5, if the election turns out theway almost every forecast suggests that it will with Republicans taking the Senate, Democrats will likely blame the failure of their voters -- young people, African Americans and Latinos -- to turn out. And given that many states with tough Senate races are in the South, where the majority of African Americans live, Democrats are very much banking on black voters to be their firewall.

A story from The New York Times blares"Black Vote Seen as Last Hope for Democrats to Hold the Senate."

And in the USA Today, "Black lawmakers anchor Democratic Southern Voter Push."

President Obama, who spurred black voter turnout to record numbers in 2008 and 2012, is making his own appeal to black voters -- an effort backed by a $1 million push on black radio in North Carolina and more in other states from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. (Of course,given the tens of millions the DSCC spends, thisis a significant -- though not huge -- investment.)

Here was Obama on the Steve Harvey show on Wednesday morning (emphasis mine):

The truth of the matter is, African American voters, young voters, progressive voters, Latino voters, they now vote at relatively high rates during presidential elections. But I bet a whole bunch of your listeners arent even thinking about this election coming up on Nov. 4. But this is really the last election in which I have the opportunity to get a Congress that will work with me.

Back in 2010, folks didnt vote. As a consequence, the tea party took over the Republican Party. We lost the House. And, although weve made a lot of progress on various issues since then, basically Congress has fought me every step of the way and it led to things like the shutdown and all kinds of negative consequences in terms of things like gun control that we couldn't get done. So, we really need to have the kind of Congress that is serious about the issues that matter to folks and the responsibility is ultimately up on everybodys whos listening.

Folks like to complain, talk about Washington. But if only 45 ... 40 percent of the people are voting, then its not surprising that Congress isnt responsive. If people voted at the same rates during midterms as they did during presidential elections, we would maintain Democratic control of the Senate . . . and so I need everybody listening to understand this is really, really important.

Harvey's audience is primarily black, spread across 64 markets and numbers 7 million listeners.

Obama said "folks didn't vote," and as a result he was handed a shellacking in 2010, courtesy of the tea party and the failure of his folks to show up at presidential rates. Keep in mind, though, that turnout drops across the board in midterms,often from around 60 percent to somewhere in the 40s, depending on the demographic.

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The Fix: President Obama was wrong. Democrats wont lose because of black voters.

Two weeks ago, we looked at initial early voting data compiled by the U.S. Election Project with the aim of sussing out how campaigns were doing at putting votes in the bank. At that point, it seemed like Democrats were doing particularly well in Iowa and North Carolina compared to voter registration numbers. Republicans were doing well in other battleground states.

Now, that's changed. Compared to overall voter registration, Iowa and North Carolina Democrats are doing much worse than earlier in the month, and Republicans in those states much better. We've also added new states that recently began early voting: Nevada, California and Colorado. In each, Republicans are outperforming Democrats.

How to read this: A red or blue dot above the diagonal line shows that the Republican (or, for a blue dot, Democratic) vote in the state comprises a larger percentage of the early vote than the total voter pool. A dot below the line indicates that the early vote is under-performing for that demographic. The further above or below the line the dot falls, the better or worse the group is faring. The change since the last time we did this is indicated with a line connected to the small dot at the previous percentage.

Interestingly, unaffiliated/undeclared voters are uniformly underperforming their registration numbers, perhaps in part because campaigns aren't targeting them as aggressively in the early vote process. But that puts the poor performance of Democratic campaigns in sharper relief. If unaffiliated voters are underperforming as a percentage of all of the votes that are in, one would expect the two parties to be overperforming.

But Democrats aren't. The bad news for them is clear: the extent to which the red dots are above the line and the blue dots are below it. In what we expect to be a relatively low-turnout election, Democrats would want (and really need) to leverage their generally superior turnout mechanisms to bank votes early. So far, they're getting beaten at that effort.

The bad news for Republicans is that as we mentioned two weeks ago these numbers can and will change quickly. As always, it's the trend that's worth watching, and while the red dots are mostly rising, they're falling in Florida and Maine. (In Georgia, where data areavailable in terms of the race of the voter, the number of black voters voting early is rising, which can be read as another good sign for Democrats, since they are a reliably Democratic constituency.)

The bottom line: Republicans are seeing what they want higher rates of turnout among their voters.

Philip Bump writes about politics for The Fix. He previously wrote for The Wire, the news blog of The Atlantic magazine. He has contributed to The Daily Beast, The Atlantic, The Daily, and the Huffington Post. Philip is based in New York City.

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Democrats have an early vote problem

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