Clinton and Women

Hillary Clinton's crushing her primary rivals among woman voters, but fares no better than past male Democratic nominees or her male primary rivals among women in general election trial heat polls. I don't totally understand that dynamic, but I think it clearly deserves more scrutiny. My friend Dana Goldstein's done a great piece on progress women's love for Clinton, but it doesn't give much sense of why this appeal doesn't carry over at all to independents or moderates.

UPDATE: To be clear, it's not surprising why Clinton would do better with Democratic women than with independent women -- that's because she's a Democrat. What is surprising is that, all else being equal, she does better than other Democrats with Democratic women -- seemingly because she's a woman -- but does no better than male Democrats do with independent women.

Comments

There are millions of women wedded (pun intended) to the view men lead and women follow. I don't know about the Hillary dynamic. However, I see women swoon over Romney and others that would gladly throw them into a second class category of citizenship. What is it about a person that allows them to accept, or worse hope, for a leader that espouses policy views designed to deny them equal treatment under the law? Can Hillary attract the interest of women who are misogynists? I think not.

Posted by steve duncan | June 14, 2007 11:50 AM

Suppose that HC's dominance among women voters in the primaries is based on identity politics. Well, we know that voting for a politician on the basis of identity politics is a habit of the extremes in American politics, whether on the left (African Americans for Jesse J., primarily because he is black) or on the right (Bill O'Reilly fans for whoever is the whitest, male-est Christianist); and that it is something of an anathema among those who think of themselves as independents (look at independent white guy support for characters like Powell, and now, to an extent, Obama). So, I don't have the polling to back this up, but I would guess it's mostly a case of identity politics.

Posted by lampwick | June 14, 2007 11:52 AM

The same dynamic applies with working-class voters. Blue-collar Dems like HRC but blue-collar indies/GOPers do not. On other other hand, Obama's appeal to Indy/Post-Grad Dems transcends party affiliation. It's why he'd make a far stronger general election candidate than HRC.

Posted by Jon | June 14, 2007 11:57 AM

I'm not sure what's confusing about this. From the polling you cite, see

"She does best among women, Democratic partisans, older voters, and less-educated and lower-income workers."

You vote identity--and Democrat--if you're worried about the costs of your identity. Such women are almost certain to be Democrats. But some women--in specific, white women--aren't that worried about being women. As GFR has noted, there is a white woman gap that favors Republicans. Which suggests, to me, that the women who vote Republican (or not Democrat) are more likely to not consider "women" a particularly worrisome characteristic. So decisions are made on other grounds.

Or I think of my own experience. I know few women who prefer HRC, but most women I know are well-educated, career-oriented young women who don't seem to worry overmuch that their gender directly materially harms them. (Maybe it's because things are better, maybe they just haven't hit the rough spots yet. Whatever.) So they seem to be making candidate decisions on other criteria, and HRC is usually going to be a loser on those grounds.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | June 14, 2007 12:11 PM

No matter what the polls tell us now, Hillary Clinton cannot win unless she commits to pulling us from Iraq. That is all I ever hear, and as the primaries get closer the pressure will mount for Clinton to tell us about her Iraq policy. If staying in is the policy, Clinton is done.

Posted by Jennifer | June 14, 2007 12:24 PM

Yep, the demographic determanism of the race is almost depressing...

Hillary is the "establishment candidate". In the Democratic party, the establishment candidate always gets more of the poor, less educated non-white vote. I don't know how it breaks down between males and females, but probably more of the female vote as well. (one could well ask why Obama isn't doing better among blacks--it's because someone in his role traditionally doesn't do well among blacks)

Hillary is not doing as well among Democratic voters with women who are wealthier and more educated--even though one would think such women would identify with her more strongly. Once again, demographics trump even identity politics.

As for why women generally would be less favorable to Clinton, once you broaden the pool from Democratic women to all women, you also broaden your demographic pool to include a lot more married white women living in the suburbs and the dilute the voting power of poor single urban women. All those married white women? They want Obama ;)

Posted by JMS | June 14, 2007 12:24 PM

I'm with SCMT, only I would go farther. There is, if you hadn't noticed, a rather large spectrum of views among women about the role of women. The further you get away from the left (where like Dem primary voters congregate), the closer you get to people who will viscerally dislike HRC for her "masculine" characteristics -- assertive (pushy), rational (calculating), and ambitious (ambitious). And it's very unhelpful to call these women misogynists.

Posted by nolaboyd | June 14, 2007 12:34 PM

The reason is because most "independent" women are really just Republicans who are currently embarrassed to admit their party affiliation due to the President. These women are going to vote for the Republican nominee regardless of who the Democrat is and the fact that Hillary is a woman is totally nullified by the fact that she is a Democrat.

Posted by Ron | June 14, 2007 12:55 PM

To add what may be an unnecessary clarification in response to the update: Democratic women--particularly white Democratic women--may well be women for whom gender carries a cost. For such women, a vote for HRC is a smart defensive move. Even if she doesn't help women much through policy as President, she is less likely to hurt them as a class. If gender carries less of a cost for non-Democratic women, you'd expect those women to evaluate all candidates on non-gendered grounds. At which point, a Democrat is a Democrat is a Democrat. So you see similar scores (if I've read you correctly) for Dems across the board.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | June 14, 2007 1:41 PM

"....it's very unhelpful to call these women misogynists."

Posted by nolaboyd | June 14, 2007 12:34 PM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When foreign cultures subjugate women, deny them equal rights, control their bodies and reserve the right to abuse them in various fashions we in the U.S. rightly label it misogyny. Their claims it is religious in nature doesn't much soften our contempt for what they practice. When women in the U.S. think some of what is done in Saudi Arabia is O.K. (albeit in lesser extremes) labeling their attitudes towards women (and themselves) as misogynistic is fitting. It is these women, among others, that won't be flocking to Hillary.

Posted by steve duncan | June 14, 2007 2:03 PM

I was recently in a conversation with two women who were against HRC. They 'lost respect' for her because she didn't leave Bill after he cheated. Non- democrats or non- political types more concerned with 'character' than issues? I wonder how much 'baggage' still attaches to the Clintons even outside of winger circles.

And if you think about it, the low income/ nonwhite democrats were big fans of Bill, too. I wonder if that's carrying over to Hillary.

Posted by ronin | June 14, 2007 2:10 PM

What is it about a person that allows them to accept, or worse hope, for a leader that espouses policy views designed to deny them equal treatment under the law?

This is a question I often ask Log Cabin Republicans . . .

Posted by rea | June 14, 2007 2:27 PM

Democratic women are disproportionately single or divorced. Married women are a lot more conservative.

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 14, 2007 3:55 PM

I am female, and likely to vote Democrat, though not enthusiastically and I loathe Hillary. Anyone remember Juanita Brodderick? Hillary didn't give a rat's heiny what crap Bill had pulled (including forcible rape) because he was still important to her political career. She refused to go it without him because of expediency. Independent woman? Please. Give me a break. She's politically dependent on Bill. Disgusting.

She is not the feminist candidate some are framing her to be. Remember the silence from NOW over the rape? Women don't lie about that, according to NOW. Yet they couldn't bring themselves to say a word about it.

Not only that but there is the fact that she's an alien robot and the instant she is inaugurated the mother ship will de-cloak over the white house.

I just can't stand the woman.

Posted by M | June 14, 2007 4:06 PM

"Anyone remember Juanita Brodderick?"

Also, don't forget that Hillary murdered Vince Fawster.

Posted by rilkefan | June 14, 2007 4:16 PM

Democratic women are disproportionately single or divorced. Married women are a lot more conservative.

And what does that explain, Sailer?

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | June 14, 2007 4:20 PM

"Also, don't forget that Hillary murdered Vince Fawster."

Ahh. The vast right wing cospiracy, eh? Right.

Posted by M | June 14, 2007 4:31 PM

Democratic women are disproportionately single or divorced.

Cite please.

Married women are a lot more conservative.

Cite please.

Posted by NonyNony | June 14, 2007 5:17 PM

Certainly!

Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg's new report "Unmarried Women in the 2004 Presidential Election" [PDF format] finds that:

"The marriage gap is one of the most important cleavages in electoral politics… The marriage gap is a defining dynamic in today’s politics, eclipsing the gender gap, with marital status a significant predictor of the vote, independent of the effects of age, race, income, education or gender."

Greenberg found that:

"Unmarried women voted for Kerry by a 25-point margin (62 to 37 percent), while married women voted for President Bush by an 11-point margin (55 percent to 44 percent)… This was true of all age groups…"

Bush carried merely 44% of the single white females but 61% of the married white women—a 17 point difference.

Among white men, Bush won 53% of the singles and 66% of the married—a 13 point difference.

http://www.vdare.com/Sailer/050123_vindicated.htm

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 14, 2007 5:37 PM

By the way, you may have heard a lot about how young voters went heavily for Kerry (54-45 over Bush). But that's largely because young voters are less likely to be married. Greenberg writes:

"Unmarried 18- 29 year olds gave Kerry a 25 point margin, while younger married women, like their older counterparts, gave President Bush an 11 point margin."

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 14, 2007 5:39 PM

And, here's another great quote from Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg:

Greenberg built a multiple regression model and found:

"Marital status was a statistically significant predictor of likelihood to vote for Kerry… This is true even when controlling for other demographic and behavioral factors such as gender, age, race, gun ownership, union household membership, party identification, education, income, and church attendance.

“Controlling for all these other variables, the odds of voting for Kerry were 1.56 times greater if the voter was unmarried than if the voter was married.

“In contrast, once other demographic and behavioral factors were controlled for, a voter’s gender had no significant effect on their likelihood to vote for the Democrat."

All this fits in perfectly with my theory that Republicans win in states with "affordable family formation," where housing prices are low enough and public schools are good enough that white people feel they can afford to marry and have kids:

http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2005/05/08/affordable-family-formation-the-neglected-key-to-gops-future/

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 14, 2007 5:44 PM

The answer of course to Yglesias's question is that Democratic women voters tend to be more anti-male than non-Democratic women voters. They have reason to be less pro-male than other women voter -- they are less likely to be married.

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 14, 2007 7:49 PM

"more anti-male"

This is a stupid claim, of course - but do you want to be consistent at least and say Republican male voters are more anti-female than non-Republican male voters?

Posted by rilkefan | June 15, 2007 12:33 AM

Perhaps -- I'm never seen stats on how divorced men vote. If a higher rate of divorced men voted Republican than married men, then by this logic: yes.

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 15, 2007 1:04 AM