The media usually spins the gender gap as being driven by female voters' preference for Democrats. In fact, however, much of the polling data I've seen suggests that the female vote is fairly closely divided between the two parties. A major article in today's LA Times (of all places) confirms what I've suspected for a long time; namely, that the gender gap is driven mainly by a preference for the GOP among white males:
In the modern political era, Democrats never expect to carry white men, who reliably tilt Republican. But the emerging threat to Democrats in 2004 is that Bush will win white men so decisively that the party can't overcome his advantage with other voter groups that lean in their direction, such as minorities and college-educated white women. ...
Recent polls underscore the challenge for Democrats with white men. In an ABC/Washington Post survey released last week, white men preferred Bush over an unnamed Democrat in 2004 by 62% to 29%, a head-turning 33-point margin; by contrast, white women gave Bush just a 10-point lead. ...
[Some] Democrats worry that if Dean's liberal positions on social issues, such as civil unions for gays, and his emphatic opposition to the war in Iraq allow Republicans to typecast him as a Northeastern cultural elitist, "he could get wiped out among [white men] not by a 24-point margin like Gore, but by a 30- or 35-point margin...."
Update: Calpundit Kevin Drum tweaks Ronald Brownstein, who wrote the LA Times story on the gender gap discussed below, for not slicing the electorate more thinly:
How about Southern white males vs. everyone else, Ron? (Besides, we all know that the real action is in the urban/rural divide anyway, right?)He has a point, of course. There are countless ways of slicing and dicing the electorate. One of my favorites is the newly popular pollster fad for NASCAR dads (although it seems being a NASCAR mom is pretty important too):
The approval rating for Bush is 61 percent among men who like NASCAR, 55 among those who don't, according to the Pew Research Center For The People & The Press. The gap is even greater among women - Bush has a 58 percent rating among NASCAR women and only 47 percent among non-racing fans. The error margins for these different samples range from 3.5 to 6 percent.If attitudes towards NASCAR are a useful proxy for the South versus rest of the country/rural versus urban distinctions Kevin wants to draw, it strikes me as noteworthy that Bush commands a majority even among men who don't like NASCAR. Anyway, I thought the "real action" was church attendance:
People who attend church regularly are twice as likely to vote Republican than those who don’t, according to a new survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. ...
"It’s the most powerful predictor of party ID and partisan voting intention," said Thomas Mann, a political scholar at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.Anyhow, here's hoping Kevin feels better soon and is back at his post blogging away.
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