The Women's Voices, Women Vote Action Fund put out a new national opinion survey today showing Obama leads 58 to 31 percent among unmarried women - they say this lead has been large and stable from the beginning of the campaign.
This differs significantly from married women, which is divided evenly - 46 percent Obama, 47 percent McCain.
They report that unmarried women are the largest demographic base group - 26 percent of the voting age population.
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner conducted the poll and calls it the marriage gap.
The difference between how married and unmarried women vote has been a long standing divide in U.S. politics. Many analysts have looked at the difference between the Clinton elections of 92 and 96 and Gore and Kerry's outcomes in 00 and 04 -- and found one of the biggest differences was the turnout of unmarried women was significantly higher for Clinton that the other two candidates.
It's a serious divide within gender politics. One of the prevailing theories is that since unmarried women have to face household and economic decisions they are more in touch with the pocketbook, daily life issues that are the core of progressivism - vs. married women who often are seen as being less in tune with these types of daily struggles and often vote more on 'cultural' issues instead.
I don't know if this theory is true - but it's clear there is some significant undercurrents in gender politics in this country - but also continuing misrepresentations of what "cultural issues" progressive stand for. With the economy having crashed under the legacy of Reaganism, we still have a long way to go in reframing the legacy he left in the the culture wars away from the Christian Coalition's wedge issue definitions.
As a married woman, I strongly believe progressives represent both my economic/household interests and my cultural beliefs.
It really would've been fascinating to see if married/unmarried dynamic might have changed if Hillary had been the nominee - or had been the VP nominee.
For now, I'll just hope that tons of unmarried women turn out on Nov 4!
[The survey included 1,028 respondents between October 12-14, 2008 in the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The survey carries a margin of error of +/- 3.0 at a 95 percent confidence level.]