The Fix: Why it matters that Hillary Clinton is a woman
Breaking: Hillary Clinton, if she were to run for and win the presidency, would be the first female U.S. president.
And, if you believe the polls, almost nobody who has any control over that really gives a rip.
New polling from Quinnipiac University on Wednesday showed about three-quarters of people in the swing states of Colorado, Iowa and Virginia said that distinction made no difference to their 2016 vote. And the majority who said it did were Democrats. Basically no Republicans said it madethem more likely to back Clinton, and only about one in 10independents agreed -- the same percentage who said it makes them less likely to back her.In other words, these are probably just folks who claim to be independent but vote reliably for either party.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll a few weeks back showed basically the same thing, with just slightly more independents saying the first-woman-president thing was something that made them more pro-Clinton.
Citing the new polling data, MSNBC.com ran this headline:
And despite the numbers above, the answer to that question is yes. It matters. That doesn't mean it's definitely a positive for her, but it matters.
People are really bad at deducing precisely what is important to their vote. Just because they say something isn't important doesn't mean it isn't. The same goes for endorsements. Nobody likes to think their vote is based on such easy shorthand, but sometimes it is.
Case in point: the first-black-president thing. Turns out, back in 2008, almost nobody said itwas a big deal -- even less than the first-woman-president thing today.
A Gallup poll conducted in June 2008 found 78 percent of African Americans and 88 percent of whites said Obama's race had nothing to do with their vote. (The question wasn't framed as "first black president," for what it's worth, but it stands to reason that's how almost everyoneinterpreted it.)
By the end of the campaign, just 9 percent were sayingObama's race made them more likely to vote for him, and 6 percent less likely -- basically a wash. And given much of the "more likely" crowd were African Americans (who vote almost universallyDemocratic anyway), it's hard to say whether it had any measurable effect on swing voters.
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The Fix: Why it matters that Hillary Clinton is a woman