October 21, 2014

Obama’s sagging fortunes among women voters dragging down vulnerable Democrats

Pro-abortion President Barack Obama
Pro-abortion President Barack Obama

Two weeks from today we vote in the mid-term elections. Survey results from a number of hotly contested Senate races show the difference at a point or two.

In two states—Louisiana and Georgia—that require the winner to have 50%, there is a likelihood that there will be subsequent runoffs after November 4. (The presence of a third candidate could easily drain off enough of the vote to prevent anyone from reaching the magically 50%.)

Message? Be sure to vote, and be sure that all your pro-life friends, family, and acquaintances do likewise.
Meanwhile, President Obama remains an albatross around the neck of vulnerable Democrats. Yesterday he once again did his best to wipe away the pretence Democrats who vote with him 95%-99% of the time are somehow independent agents.

You remember a couple of weeks ago when after talking about his economic policies, the President ad-libbed: ‘Now, I am not on the ballot this fall . . . but make no mistake, these policies are on the ballot — every single one of them.”

Monday, he did himself one better in the candor category. Interviewed by the Rev. Al Sharpton, Obama went out of his way to defend those Democrats who have not welcomed him to come into their state to campaign with them. (Some, of course, refuse even to say if they voted for Mr. Obama!)
“The bottom line is, though, these are all folks who vote with me; they have supported my agenda in Congress,” Obama said.

One other intriguing fact that is coming out in the surveys. To be sure, with his approval ratings at around 40%-41%% and disapproval figures around 53% to 55%, you wouldn’t expect his approval numbers to be particularly high among any category except among African-Americans.

Even so a headline in POLITICO—“Obama’s standing with women hurts Senate Dems”—was a bit surprising. Manu Raju writes with two weeks to go, “the president’s diminished standing with women is quickly becoming one of the biggest liabilities facing Democrats as they struggle to hang onto the Senate majority.”

He mentions in passing what everyone already knows—that Democrats in key Senate races are taking a beating among men. Thus these incumbents cannot do well if they do not enjoy a strong advantage among women.
Raju uses Alaska as an example of the possible spillover effect of Obama’s unpopularity. Obama lost Alaska soundly in both 2008 and 2012, In Alaska, for instance, Obama lost soundly in 2008 and 2012. But, according to Raju

“he’s only gone downhill from there, especially among female voters, only 29 percent of whom give him high marks. Obama’s 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.”

Sullivan, who is firmly pro-life, says he “has done well with women by promoting local issues that resonate with them,” Raju reports. Said Thomas Reiker, a spokesman for Sullivan, “Mark Begich continues to run the same tired ‘war on women’ campaign straight out of Harry Reid’s playbook, but he can’t run from his failed record in Washington, D.C.”

Raju also cited Colorado, where incumbent Mark Udall has so obsessed on abortion and “reproductive health issues” one reporter dubbed him “Senator Uterus.” A Quinnipiac poll this week showed NRLC-endorsed Rep. Cory Gardner beating Udall among men by 19 points and behind among women by only 9 points.

The President’s “sharp decline in Colorado,” Raju writes, “has made life much harder for Udall. The CNN poll showed 60 percent of white women disapproving of Obama’s job performance — and 56 percent of nonwhite women also holding negative views.”
The same phenomenon is seen in other Senate races.

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News Today