Unmarried Women Could Pay Huge Role in Fall Campaign

A new poll shows that there is a huge gap between married and single women in how they view the candidates, the issues, and the choices America faces. The poll done by Democratic pollsters Stan Greenberg and Anna Greenberg of Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research found that "unmarried women tend Democratic, preferring a Democrat to a Republican for President by 41 percentage points, and are already playing a large role in the Democratic primaries."

(Disclosure: Together with Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, Stan Greenberg conducts bi-partisan surveys for NPR on the main issues of the day.)

The poll had some interesting findings. The idea of a "women's agenda" is outdated. What matters now is more of a "life stage" agenda - thus the split between married and unmarried women.

While both groups prefer Democrats in a generic campaign, when the candidates' names are added differences emerge. Clinton and Obama continue to lead only among unmarried women (62 to 31 percent) by significant margins. Married women split their vote between McCain and Clinton or McCain and Obama.

There are issues that the two subsets agree on: 77 percent of married and unmarried women agree that the country is headed in the wrong direction, and both groups of agree that the economy is the number one issue this year.

But the poll also shows that neither Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton have done a good job of winning the support of this unmarried women. And the pollster say that it is a group that is poised to turn out in record numbers in 2008.

"At 26% of the electorate, unmarried women now represent a larger portion of voters than blacks and Hispanics combined," said Page Gardner, President, Women's Voices. Women Vote Action Fund in a release that accompanied the survey. "Yet their priorities aren't on any candidate's agenda. If either of the candidates wants to be the nominee, and then wants to win in November, he or she needs to learn to connect with these women in terms of how they live."

This is an even more interesting comment: "Unmarried women are to progressives what evangelicals were to conservatives in 2004," said Stan Greenberg. "Unmarried women will make a tremendous impact in primaries and caucuses this year, and they are the road to the White House in 2008 general elections."

12:33 PM ET | 04-15-2008 | permalink