Posted on 12/21/2004 1:09:33 PM PST by Lorianne
The erosion of the gender gap in this election starkly illustrates Alan Brinkley’s insights regarding how issues of class and values pose challenges for progressives and the Democratic Party. In the last two presidential elections, the Democratic candidate won among women fairly decisively, by 16 points (Bill Clinton) and 11 points (Al Gore), respectively. In contrast, John Kerry won women voters by a mere 3 points, 51 percent to 48 percent. Kerry’s trouble with women is clearly rooted in the decline of support among white, blue-collar women for Democratic candidates, a trend that reached its low point to date in this election.
During the 1990s, Democratic candidates struggled with white, blue-collar women while gaining ground with college-educated women. In 2000, Gore won 53 percent of the vote among women with a high-school education or less, 50 percent of the vote among women with some college education, and 57 percent of the vote among women with a college education. This represented a 5-point decline among high-school-educated women and a 3-point decline among women with some college education for the Democratic candidate from 1996. In 2004, George W. Bush made gains with women in general, but the increasing softness among blue-collar women took its toll. Kerry won college-educated women by 9 points (54 percent to 45 percent), broke even with women with a high-school education (50 percent to 49 percent) -- a 3-point drop from 2000 -- and lost women with some college education by 2 points (49 percent to 51 percent). Even starker, in a post-election survey by Democracy Corps, Kerry lost white women without a college education this year by 23 points (38 percent to 61 percent).
The erosion of support for Democratic candidates among women represents a political transformation from a time when voters, both working class and affluent, voted in ways consistent with their economic interests. Today, despite the economic interests, socially conservative, white, blue-collar women have moved increasingly into the Republican camp, primarily around social and cultural issues that include perceived moral decline, abortion and reproductive health, challenges to women’s traditional roles in society and family, and gay rights. This is not a recent development; it is the culmination of the increasing polarization around cultural issues that began in the 1970s and intensified in the 1990s.
In this election, this trend proved true even among those blue-collar women voters who seemed most likely to vote for Kerry. White, older, blue-collar women are among the most economically insecure in our country, with deep concerns about health-care costs and retirement security. Those and other domestic topics dominated the campaign in the first part of 2004, at least in campaign advertising in the battleground states. During this period (February to April), Kerry led with white older women by an average of 7 points and white, older, non-college women by 2 points. By election day, Kerry lost white older women by 7 points and white, older, non-college women by 18 points. Even more striking, there was a 14-point gap between white, older, non-college women’s identification with the Democratic Party (4-point Democratic disadvantage) and their support for Kerry (18-point disadvantage).
What happened over those months? Kerry lost ground with older, white, blue-collar women when the national discussion moved from health care, retirement, and other domestic priorities to security, the war on terrorism, and the war in Iraq. Starting with a Democratic convention focused on security and military experience, economic issues were largely absent from the national scene. In the absence of a real economic discussion, these voters swung to Bush as he tapped into their social conservatism, their support for his approach to the war on terrorism, and their admiration of his religious faith.
Brinkley clearly identifies the twin challenges of addressing the absence of a real economic vision and the “values” gap faced by progressives and Democrats, and these challenges are most dramatically felt among white blue-collar women. But this election shows that Democrats have opportunities to speak to some of the most economically vulnerable women voters -- Kerry won unmarried women decisively (54 percent of whom earn less than $30,000 a year) -- if they can offer a compelling narrative about how to promote women’s economic security while emphasizing the shared values of opportunity, equality, tolerance, and fairness, and not ceding faith to the right.
Anna Greenberg is the vice president of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and a former professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Good article.
1. For those wondering, "Mind the Gap" is what London Underground conductors say when there train stops at stations where you have to step across to the platform like Tottenham Court.
2. It illustrates the failure of the Democrats to come up with an economic message to address the upward mobility concerns of blue collar workers in the age of outsourcing and deindustrialization. Once Kerry decided to mute his criticisms of outsourcing and fall in with the Clintonista free trade types he was left with nothing to say to working class voters that would override their national security/moral values concerns.
Yet, at the same time, people who vote Republican are "voting against their own economic interest."
I guess Democrats are selfless people who just happen to vote in their own economic interest.
John Kerry reminds most women of their first husband.
Democrats are losing women because they don't bathe, shave their beards, or wear nice suits. And they lie, cheat and steal. Really, you can't take them anywhere.
Does this mean that college educated women have less "common sense" than non-college educated women?
LOL....
I'll keep that in mind while searching for husband #2!!!
Also most women who would have been raised to vote democrat were aborted instead. Talk about unintended circumstances.
And that's just the feminists.
"...moral decline, abortion and reproductive health, challenges to women’s traditional roles in society and family, and gay rights. This is not a recent development; it is the culmination of the increasing polarization around cultural issues that began in the 1970s and intensified in the 1990s...lemme see... according to UC Berkeley Professor George Lakoff, the DEMs has NOT moved left enough!!! just gonna tell ya there's GOD.
And you're right about that. LOL
Hillary said the same thing about Bush 41 in the 1992 election. Of course, that was never reported as a mean-spirited, ad hominem attack.
Aside from being an oblivious liberal, the writer is unconvincing because of her liberal use of qualifiers and her reliance on "experts" that share her views. It reminded me of college sophmore papers that I had to grade many years ago. Now that was really torture.
Try dead husband.
Maybe they were "confused" and thought that being allowed to keep more of the income THEY earned, and having an economy slightly less inundated with regulations, and holding out some hope for tort reform, WOULD be in their economic best interests. These sanctimonious libs raise my blood pressure.
I always read the phrase "college educated" as "college indoctrinated." Of course, a side benefit is a little education.
It also illustrates the easy familiarity Democrat elites have with European customs and even Eurotrivia like tube slogans.
If they knew more about the colloquialisms of the people who vote in this country they'd be better off.
Democrats can't protect women.
Or does it mean that college educated women disproportionately work in fields that are dependent on government funding, like education and "social services"?
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