This afternoon the National Journal’s Jim O’Sullivan reports that a new ABC News/Washington Post survey shows that Mitt Romney is closing the so-called gender gap.
Today’s ABC News/Washington Post poll makes clear that President Obama, despite a month of “War on Women” chatter on Obama-friendly MSNBC and from the mouths of Democrats, has fallen sharply in the eyes of female registered voters. His lead among them over Mitt Romney, a whopping 19 percentage points in last month’s poll, fell to 7 points. And married women, who backed Obama by a 4-point spread last month, now go for Romney by 17 points.
That’s a lot of women changing their minds, both stay-at-home moms like Ann Romney and not-stay-at-home moms like Hilary Rosen. The April survey, conducted before the end of the controversy over Rosen’s remarks considered by some to demean stay-at-home moms, would not have gauged its full impact.
Married women are, as the pollsters note, more likely to say they’re worse off under Obama’s presidency than are men or unmarried women. And they vote. The poll’s essence, that Obama’s once-daunting advantage among women has slimmed on account of the economy, is another assertion that the pocketbook gauge is the one on which this election will hinge, not the endless parade of sideshows.
— Jim O’Sullivan
Should President Obama be worried?
What does Ann Romney know of that? Forty years ago, when there was much chatter about women entering the workplace, it was true that college-educated women were eschewing the role of stay at home moms, opting instead to put their education to use and seek employment.