Mothers of Invention [Terrorism and Voting by Women]

If you've been following the presidential campaign these last few weeks, you've probably heard a thing or two about security moms--the erstwhile soccer moms who became obsessed with terrorism after September 11, and, in the process, began tilting Republican. The typical "security mom" story--variations of which have appeared in The Washington Post (twice), The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Philadelphia Inquirer in recent weeks, as well as on CNN, ABC, and NPR--cites the hair-raising effect of the recent Russian school massacre. It mentions Laura Bush's frequent pitches to women on security matters, and notes how the Republican Convention was awash in security talk. Often the stories are larded with a testimonial by a real-live security mom, invariably a pro-choice, pro-gay rights, anti-death penalty former Gore supporter who's convinced only George W. Bush can keep her children safe. All of them conclude that security moms could cost John Kerry the election.

Oh, and the stories usually have one other thing in common: They're based on almost no empirical evidence.

As with most urban myths, the idea that terror-related anxiety would drive women into the Republican column is eminently plausible: You'd expect the maternal instinct to make women more concerned about security in the high-risk, post-September 11 environment. And, indeed, though women have routinely favored Democrats over Republicans by double-digit margins during the last 25 years, the early post-9/11 era did show some erosion of the so-called gender gap. Al Gore won the women's vote by eleven points in 2000 (54 to 43); Democratic Congressional candidates racked up an eight-point margin among women that year. But, according to a post-election analysis conducted by the polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, Democrats only won women by a two-point margin during the 2002 midterm elections. (Congressional Democrats lost men by roughly 10 points in both 2000 and 2002.)

It's not clear that even the 2002 result was attributable to security moms, however. One problem for Democrats that year was that Republicans turned out in much greater force: Self-identified Republicans accounted for 39 percent of the electorate in 2002, versus 35 percent in 2000. (For Democrats the numbers were essentially reversed.) It's likely that more women voted Republican in 2002 simply because more women voters were Republicans. Another possibility is that Republicans successfully muddied the waters on the traditional sources of Democratic strength among women--issues like education and health care. (A Newsweek poll released just before the election showed Democrats and Republicans tied on education, and Democrats with only a ten-point lead on health care.) Without large advantages on these issues, its only natural that Democrats would have fared worse than usual.

But even if you concede that terrorism paid dividends for Republicans among women in 2002, the effect didn't last very long. By winter, all of the old, familiar gender gap dynamics had returned. A February 2003 Washington Post/ABC poll found that George W. Bush's approval rating was 10 points higher among men than women (69-59), and his disapproval rating eight points lower among men (30-38). And this finding filtered down to terrorism, the defining security mom issue. A Gallup poll out that same month put Bush's approval rating on the war on terrorism 12 points higher among men than among women (77-65) and his disapproval rating 12 points lower (20-32). Unfortunately, this was right around the time the media was discovering the security mom story. A June 2, 2003 Time magazine story entitled "Goodbye, Soccer Mom, Hello Security Mom," introduced readers to people like Debbie Creighton, "a 34-year-old Santee, Calif., mother of two who voted for Bill Clinton twice and used to choose the candidates who were most liberal on abortion and welfare." "Since 9/11," Creighton told Time, "all I want in a President is a person who is strong."

Still, it wasn't until after this summer's Republican convention that security moms became a bona fide growth industry. Suddenly, as The New York Times put it earlier this week, "an issue Mr. Bush had initially pitched as part of an overall message--which candidate would be best able to protect the United States from terrorists--has become particularly compelling for women." Except that, well, it hasn't--at least that part about "particularly compelling." The problem with most of the reporting on security moms is that it fails to distinguish between Kerry's support among women relative to men (i.e., the gender gap, which doesn't tend to fluctuate much over short periods of time) and his absolute level of support among women (which fluctuates just like it does for anyone else). In fact, while Kerry has lost ground among women since August, he's lost about the same amount of ground among men. Or, put differently, Kerry's losing women because he's losing everybody, and women are half of everybody.

Don't believe me? Consider some numbers. Just after the Democratic Convention, a Gallup poll put Bush up seven among men, down six among women, for a gender gap of 13. (The poll showed the overall race tied at 48 percent.) In the Gallup poll conducted September 13-15, Bush was up 16 among men and up 2 among women, for a gender gap of 14. (Bush was up 52-44 overall.) A Time poll released on August 6 showed a gender gap of 25 points; the September 10 version of the poll showed a similarly large (22-point) gap. In both cases, women and men had shifted from Kerry to Bush by roughly the same margin. Other polls actually show a significantly expanding gender gap since August--meaning it's men, not women, who've been finding Bush's security message particularly compelling. The Washington Post/ABC News poll came out just before the Republican Convention and then again about one week afterward. It showed a 12-point gender gap becoming a 24-point gender gap during that period. The Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll came out at roughly the same times, and showed a 5-point gender gap becoming a 20-point gender gap. What's more, both polls showed Kerry's lead over Bush among women rising during the convention, not falling. Not only did women not like the GOP's security message as much as men did, they were actively turned off by it.

When pressed, even pollster Celinda Lake, dean of security mommery, concedes, "I don't think the gender gap is disappearing." The problem, she says, is "in the way it's being reported." Lake contends that even if women aren't disproportionately abandoning Kerry, they're at least disproportionately more concerned about terrorist attacks than men. That may or may not be true. But, either way, it's not translating into anything politically meaningful. The gender gap on specific issues, like terror and national security, persists to this day. A Gallup poll conducted September 3-5 found a 15-point gender gap when it came to who voters trusted to wage the war on terror. The Washington Post poll conducted after the convention found a 27-point gap on the same issue. The Time poll asks voters a question specifically designed to get at the security mom phenomenon: "Do you agree or disagree with the following? I want a president who is strong on terrorism. Not much else matters in my vote this year." In Time's August 6 poll, 31 percent of men and 23 percent of women agreed. In its September 10 poll, after the Republican Convention and the Russian terror supposedly pressed women's security buttons, 39 percent of men agreed and 29 percent of women agreed--roughly the same proportional increase. "We've been looking at security moms on and off," says Mark Schulman, who oversees the Time poll. "We honestly could not find much empirical evidence to support it."

Indeed, just about the only evidence you can find in support of the security mom proposition comes from the New York Times/CBS poll. A Times/CBS poll conducted September 12-16 found that Bush gained 14 points relative to Kerry among women since mid-August, but a mere four points relative to men (itself a highly dubious proposition), which would have narrowed the gender gap substantially. When I asked CBS polling director Kathy Frankovic about this, her response was sheepish. "I attribute it to short-term/long-term" differences, she said. In any case, Frankovic was quick to add, CBS had just finished another poll, which showed a return of the "gender gap one would expect."

Frankovic's explanation isn't crazy. According to pollster Anna Greenberg, women tend to follow politics less closely than men. That tends to yield larger initial movements among women in response to major events--like, say, the Democratic and Republican conventions--before they return to equilibrium. Of course, that doesn't explain why almost no other poll out there captured a similar trend. (Except for Newsweek, which showed a smaller-than-usual gender gap just after the Republican Convention, though the result wasn't nearly as pronounced as CBS's.) But it may shed some light on what might have caused this apparent statistical quirk.

Whatever the case, the result is clearly a quirk. Given that, you'd think the Kerry campaign wouldn't be so defensive about its standing among women. No such luck. This week the campaign held several events and media appearances specifically targeted at women--including an women-only event about military families starring John Edwards. Pollster Mark Mellman effectively conceded the security-mom proposition in the Times this week, saying he didn't see Kerry's erosion among women as a problem so much "as an opportunity." (To her credit, a second Kerry pollster named Diane Feldman has been aggressive at knocking down the security-mom meme.) And campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill acknowledged in yesterday's Post that "In all truth, I think the standoff in Russia was frightening for women, with images of schoolchildren taken hostage. ... The president has keyed into that and is definitely playing that up." As Cahill should know by now, the operative word here is "playing."

Thanks to Maura Strausberg of Gallup for her generous help fishing out data for this piece.

More indications that this is starting to look like a big loss for Kerry in November. He's trying to solidify his hold on women voters.

She doesn't compare Bush's women numbers this year to his in 2000, though. TNR has consistently been towing the Party line this time around; a real disappointment. I had hoped to get a mildly centrist point of view from their pages. I guess their objectivity disappears when there's an election on the line.

> Thanks to Maura Strausberg of Gallup for her generous help fishing out data for this piece

Noted.

Figures - I checked three times and didnt't see my post, so hit the button again...

I agree. Reading TNR is like an out-of-body experiment. On everything, and I mean just about everything, their position is indistinguishable from a Karl Rove talking paper, but when push comes to shove, they toss their lot in with Kerry (and Gore in 2000).

What disappoints is how monolithicly they have been pro-Kerry. Not one breath of fresh air that I've seen in my casual observance. In the not distant past I did see some very good stuff there, but they're towing the line now.

In fact, while Kerry has lost ground among women since August, he's lost about the same amount of ground among men. Or, put differently, Kerry's losing women because he's losing everybody, and women are half of everybody.

Exactly!

Damn, I thought this was another Frank Zappa thread.

11 posted on 09/27/2004 9:24:50 AM PDT by SunkenCiv ("All I have seen teaches me trust the Creator for all I have not seen." -- Emerson)

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