Women Lead the Way in Tuesday’s Heavy Voter Turnout  by Peggy Simpson

November 6, 2008

Far more women than men voted this week, and a larger proportion of women favored Obama over McCain, showing a 7 percent gender gap. Eight women will serve as governors in 2009. Women newcomers took two U.S. Senate seats and 10 in the House.

Not much can match the emotional wallop of seeing the election of the first African American as president.

Some sights were priceless, including:

• the emotion on the face of one of the most influential women in the country, Oprah Winfrey, who had shared her celebrity and clout with Barack Obama so many months ago when it really mattered and who tucked herself into the midst of the crowd of 200,000 at Grant Field to savor his victory.
• the faces of tens of thousands of people of all races and ethnic groups—white, African American, Latinos, Asians, young and not so young, who listened raptly as Obama spoke and who seemed to realize that by their donations of time and money, and by showing up to vote, they had taken back the government.

There were no prime-time sightings of Hillary Clinton or husband Bill. But the enthusiasm she had helped generate with her own candidacy more than a year ago did pay off, for other women.

Exit polls showed that far more women voted than men. In some battleground states, far more black women voted than did black men, carrying great weight in putting Obama over the top in key states. In North Carolina, women were 54 percent of the vote, men were 46 percent—and black women were14 percent of the total, outnumbering black men who were 9 percent of the vote.

Women made small but significant strides in expanding their presence in national politics, with newcomers taking two U.S. Senate seats and 10 new U.S. House seats. Two other women were locked in House races too close to call.

Democrat Beverly Purdue in North Carolina won election as the state’s first woman governor. Another Democrat, Christine Gregoire of Washington, beat back a challenge from the woman she had defeated four years earlier. This means eight women will serve as governor in 2009.

There now will be 17 women in the 100-person Senate. Two incumbents won reelection, Democrat Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Republican Susan Collins of Maine; and one incumbent was defeated, GOP Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina.

Two Democratic challengers won Senate seats. Former governor Jeanne Shaheen beat GOP Senator John Sununu in New Hampshire, in a rematch from six years ago. North Carolina State Senator Kay Hagan clobbered Liddy Dole, who sought a second term. A Dole advertisement accusing Hagan of being “godless” boomeranged against her, and Hagan’s earlier career as a banker bolstered her credentials after the financial meltdown eclipsed all other issues in September.

At least 19 newcomers had been elected to the U.S. House with six races still undecided. Of the 10 women who won, five beat incumbents and five others won open seats. Eight of the 10 are Democrats. Three incumbent House members lost their seats: Republicans Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado and Thelma Drake of Virginia and Democrat Nancy Boyda of Kansas, who had rebuffed all financial help from national Democrats in an attempt to prove her independence.

Betsy Markey, a small business owner who also headed the Colorado state office for Democratic Senator Ken Salazar, beat Musgrave, the leading anti-abortion activist in Congress. Musgrave had sponsored the Colorado referendum to give fetuses legal rights as a person, which would have outlawed most forms of birth control as well as abortion.

By substantial margins, voters defeated not just the Colorado proposal but also other anti-abortion initiatives in California and South Dakota.

Voters did approve anti-affirmative referendums in several states and overturned the California law enacted in June permitting marriage for same-sex couples, leaving questions about what happens to the more than 6,000 such unions that took place in the months since then.

In Minnesota, conservative activist Michelle Bachmann survived a close call. There were major differences between the Musgrave and Bachmann races: Markey had mounted a campaign against Musgrave more than a year ago, raising a substantial war chest and getting state and national endorsements. Bachmann had appeared a sure bet for reelection and her opponent had gotten little notice, raising minimal money. When Bachmann appeared on Chris Matthews’ MSNBC “Hardball” show only weeks before the election and questioned whether Obama was “anti-American,” her opponent went into high gear to take advantage of the political furor but it was too little, too late. The incident did put Bachmann on notice about the limits of voters’ tolerance for her freewheeling accusations.

In addition to Markey, other women newly elected to the House are: Democrats Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona, Suzanne Kosmas of Florida, Debbie Halvorson of Illinois, Chellie Pingree of Maine, Dina Titus of Nevada, Marcia Fudge of Ohio and Kathy Dahlkemper; and Republicans Lynn Jenkins of Kansas and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming.

Exit polls gave some insights about the women’s vote.

Far more women voted than men; women were 53 percent of the electorate, men were 47 percent. Women voted 56 to 43 for Obama over GOP nominee John McCain.  Men voted 49 to 48 for Obama, constituting a 7 percent gender gap. That was mostly a gender gap between white men and women, however.

White women voted for McCain over Obama, 53 to 46; white men favored McCain 57 to 41. (The proportion of white women voting for Obama was larger than the 44 percent who went for John Kerry in 2004.) Whites who were 65 and older voted 58 to 40 for McCain. Young whites under 30, however, went for Obama 54 to 44—and you could see the evidence of that Tuesday at Grant Field in Chicago.

There was no gender gap among African American voters, with both women and men favoring Obama by 95 percent and higher. Nor was there much of a gender gap among Latino voters, who swung strongly behind Obama, including Florida Latinos who deserted the Republicans for the first time in decades, driven by the younger generation of Cubans and an influx of non-Cuban Hispanics.

David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies said race still dictates how whites vote in four Southern states—Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas—but has diminished as a decisive factor elsewhere. Obama did better than the 2004 Democratic nominee, John Kerry, in winning white votes in most states. Except for those four Deep South states, young whites often broke with their elders to support Obama.

Single women comprised 32 percent of the electorate, going 55 to 43 for Obama.

Obama took 83 percent of the voters who said they were Democrats for Hillary Clinton; McCain got 16 percent of them.

The exit polls shed more light on the impact of McCain’s selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. By a 60 to 38 percent margin, voters said Palin was not qualified to be president and of those who felt that way, 81 percent voted for Obama.

Another question asked if the Palin appointment had been an “important factor” in their vote; 60 percent said it had been, and they split 56 to 43 for McCain over Obama, obviously reflecting her appeal to the GOP base of religious conservatives. Another 33 percent said the Palin pick had not been an important factor in their vote and they went 66 to 33 for Obama.

The exit polls also tested what how voters looked at Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain.

Voters had warmed up more to Michelle than to Cindy. Asked if Michelle Obama would be ”a good first lady,” 59 percent said yes, 35 said no, compared to ratings for Cindy McCain of 53 favorable, 41 percent negative.