The War On The War On Women

The right is crowing over a new Pulse Opinion Research poll commissioned by TheHill.com that supposedly shows that President Obama's double-digit advantage among women has not only completely evaporated, but the survey is actually giving the advantage among women to Mitt Romney and the Republicans now.

More voters think Mitt Romney and the Republican Party respect women who work outside the home than think President Obama and the Democrats respect women who stay at home, according to the latest The Hill Poll.

Forty-nine percent of likely voters said the presumptive GOP presidential nominee respects women who have independent careers, while 27 percent said he doesn’t and 24 percent weren’t sure.

When asked if President Obama respects women who stay at home rather than pursue a career, 37 percent of likely voters said he doesn’t and 35 percent said he does. Twenty-nine percent were unsure.

Both candidates are trying to court the female vote, which could determine the winner of the presidential election in November. Women outnumber men in the United States and they also vote at a higher rate.

On the issue of which candidate better understands women’s issues, Obama has a slight advantage over Romney with all voters, 42 percent to 40 percent, but that was a statistical tie given the poll’s 3-point margin of error.

When it came to just women voters, 46 percent said Romney better understands their issues while 41 percent said Obama is better.

Indeed, the poll goes on to say that overall, women voters prefer GOP policies to Democratic policies 42%-41%, which basically flies in the face of, I don't know, every other poll I've seen in the last month on this issue.  What's the deal?

The devil is in the details, or in this case, the crosstabs.  Yes, 52%-48% women to men is pretty much within all standards, but 36% of the survey subjects were Republicans, compared to 32% Dem and 32% other.  78% of respondents were white, and 60% of respondents were over 40 years old.

Also, some of these crosstab breakdowns are ridiculous.   The Republicans lead younger voters age 18-39 by six points in the "which party has the better policies for women".  Republicans also won that question among every income group except for people making less than $20,000 a year, including a whopping 25 point lead among people making 40k-60k a year.  Mitt Romney also won the "understands women's issues" better in the same income categories, including a nine point lead among the 40k-60k income group.

If any of that is close to true, then Mitt Romney should be winning by a landslide.  Sadly, that's not the case.  Either American women love Mitt Romney and his policies and are just choosing to vote against him by 20 points, which makes no sense, or the Hill poll is a pile of elephant dung.

I'm going to go with the latter.