In the Wall Street Journal today, Fred Barnes claims the following:
More important is its appeal to women [Bush’s opposition to gay marriage]. This year the gender gap is all but gone. Women, once decidedly Democratic, are now almost evenly divided between Bush and Kerry. And while men tend to be terrorism-centered voters, women disproportionately favor conservative social values. “So much for ‘security moms’ as an explanation for Kerry’s unexpected weakness among women,” insist consultants Jeffrey Bell and Frank Cannon of Capital City Partners. Somebody please tell the national press corps.
After fading last week, the traditional gender gap has reappeared: Bush leads by 10 points among men in this survey, Kerry by eight points among women.
Those figures are not far off from 2000, when Gore led among women by 12 points but lost among men by 10 points. The CBS/New York Times poll also has Kerry up six points with women and Bush up 13 points with men (see today’s print edition). And Democracy Corps (a Democratic firm) showed Kerry up nine points among women and Bush up six among men in a poll released Thursday. Did Barnes speak too soon?
Post-election update: The National Election Pool exit poll shows Kerry only led among women 51%-48%, so it looks like Barnes was right in the end.