WASHINGTON
— Democrats are nervously counting on an enduring edge among female
voters in most states to prevent a Republican rout in Tuesday’s
elections.
Yet so great is the uncertainty that even before the returns
are in, some are second-guessing the party’s strategy of focusing more
on issues like abortion and birth control than on jobs and the economy.
The
danger for Democratic candidates is that their advantage among women
could be so reduced by dissatisfaction with President Obama and the
country’s course that it is not enough to offset Republicans’ usual edge
among the smaller population of male voters.
Should that happen, a
party pollster, Geoff Garin, acknowledged, “They’ll lose.”
But
he and other Democratic strategists professed optimism, however
tempered, for the party’s imperiled Senate majority, among other things.
Mr. Garin pointed to surveys of states with the most competitive Senate
contests showing that on average Democratic candidates lead among women
by about 12 points, while men favor the Republican by an average of
nine points. Since women account for more than half the electorate,
Democrats theoretically can withstand some erosion of support.
As
for the party’s emphasis on women’s issues, he said, “If Democrats
weren’t running on these issues, the situation would be much worse.”
“The
headwinds that you get from Obama and other factors affect everybody —
they don’t only blow in the faces of men,” Mr. Garin added.
“Even in the
face of those headwinds, Democrats are still much better able to
succeed with women voters than with men voters.”
In
Kentucky and Louisiana, new polls grabbed attention for suggesting that
Republican Senate candidates had made inroads with women.
Senator Mitch
McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate’s Republican leader, was essentially
tied among women with the Democratic challenger, Alison Lundergan
Grimes, in a Bluegrass Poll taken Oct. 25-29.
But the poll, by SurveyUSA, does not meet polling standards of The New York Times because it was partly conducted using automated phone calls.
But the poll, by SurveyUSA, does not meet polling standards of The New York Times because it was partly conducted using automated phone calls.
Louisiana’s
embattled Democratic senator, Mary Landrieu, narrowly led her
Republican challenger, Bill Cassidy, among women and men likely to vote
by Tuesday, according to a poll conducted Oct. 11-24 by the University
of New Orleans Survey Research Center.
But both groups flipped in Mr.
Cassidy’s favor for the expected December runoff election that will be
required by state law, assuming neither candidate exceeds 50 percent.
Yet
in a number of battleground states for the Senate and for governor,
Democrats continue to have enough of an advantage among women to be in
contention, even though many of the states are heavily Republican.
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That
was true for Senate candidates in Colorado, Iowa, Georgia, Arkansas,
New Hampshire and North Carolina, recent polls indicated.
In Iowa, a
Democrat, Bruce Braley, had a 12-point advantage among women over his
Republican rival, Joni Ernst, who led by 15 percentage points among men,
in a poll conducted for CNN/ORC International this week; over all, the
two were statistically tied.
Ms. Ernst has been a particular target of
women’s groups because — unlike Cory Gardner in Colorado, another
Republican Senate candidate — she has not backed off her support for a
“personhood” amendment conferring constitutional rights at conception,
which would effectively outlaw abortion and some fertility treatments
and birth control methods.
Both
parties’ strategists are scouring the rush of final polls and state
tallies of early voters to gauge whether Democrats are succeeding at
their ambitious goal that has defined this campaign season: persuading
and turning out women, particularly minority and unmarried women.
Those
are Democrats’ most reliable supporters, but also the groups most likely
to skip voting in a nonpresidential election year. Married white women
are more likely to vote, and tilt toward Republicans.
Democrats
and allied women’s groups say they are confident the party’s candidates
will do better among women than in 2010, the previous midterm election
year, when Republicans overall won female voters by a single percentage
point and captured a majority of the House and many state legislatures.
Page Gardner, founder of the Voter Participation Center, which works to
increase voting among unmarried women, said single women are more
engaged than earlier in the year.
A recent Washington Post/ABC News
poll, however, suggested their interest is lower than in recent
elections.
“It’s
certainly true that we’d be doing better if we were doing better with
women, but I do not see a disproportionate drop with women relative to
men,” said Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster.
Trends
are hard to discern from the array of state and national polls.
The
evidence about women’s leanings is mixed, and sometimes contradictory.
In
Arkansas, the Republican candidate, Tom Cotton, was tied with Senator
Mark Pryor among women in a poll of likely voters conducted Oct. 4-7 by
Fox News. Yet Mr. Pryor had an 11-point edge among women in an Oct.
19-23 poll for NBC News and Marist College’s Institute for Public
Opinion.
“On
balance, I am not convinced the Democrats will make sufficient inroads
with white women to make up for the margin by which they are going to
lose white men,” said Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster.
Democrats have not won a majority of white women since 1992.
Democrats have not won a majority of white women since 1992.
Tuesday’s results, Mr. McInturff added, would tell “whether it is possible that the single-minded focus that most Democratic candidates attached to the ‘war on women’ meant they never conveyed an economic and jobs message that might have led a higher chunk of the persuadable male vote to vote Democrat.”
Republicans increasingly make that argument that Democrats miscalculated in their zeal to galvanize women who otherwise would not vote in a midterm election — especially since The Denver Post this month endorsed Mr. Gardner, the Republican candidate, for Senate, criticizing the Democratic senator, Mark Udall, for an “obnoxious one-issue campaign” about contraceptives.
Democrats counter that Republicans use the phrase “Republicans’ war on women” more than Democrats to stoke a backlash among older and married women who reject partisan, feminist-sounding rhetoric and lean Republican.
Ms. Greenberg said Republicans were “deliberately misconstruing” Democrats’ legitimate attacks.
Yet she and other Democratic strategists complain their party has not effectively espoused a broader economic agenda, when women tell pollsters their top concern is jobs and the economy.
White House aides say the president has tried to show how to make the case for Democratic policies and to take some credit for the economy’s growth, yet Mr. Obama himself is an unwelcome messenger given his unpopularity.
Nonetheless, on Friday the president was in Rhode Island to speak — as the White House announcement put it — “on the economy and the importance of pursuing policies that help women succeed.”
Marjorie Connelly contributed reporting from New York.
A version of this article appears in print on November 1, 2014, on page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Democrats Count on Edge With Women to Limit Election Losses.
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