By Hamilton Ryan July 10, 2008
It has been said many times that a “watched pot never boils,” and maybe in this case that is true. The big question on every news station’s mind is, “Can Obama capture the women’s vote?” Many of these stations feel that, according to recent polls, he cannot win over that demographic, but maybe that is because we poll that particular area so frequently. I believe what we are seeing are the women stopping to look at their choices. They want to make the right decision. Many are disheartened and angered Clinton supporters that feel a deep sense of loyalty to their candidate, and many are still not persuaded to vote for Senator Obama just yet.
The news stations have also been wondering why the Clinton supporters have not swung over to Obama’s side even though their candidate has. The news will say that the supporters are angered, and that they may follow through on their threat to either vote for McCain, or just not vote at all. I think that many of the supporters are simply waiting to see who Obama chooses for his Vice-President. They may follow through on their threat, but only after they know who the VP candidate is going to be. In my opinion, what looks like Obama may not be gaining ground, may actually be the Clinton supporters holding out until they find out more about him, and who is VP candidate is.
One should simply take a look at the poll numbers, and decide for themselves. If the numbers are staying the same then maybe there are a lot of women undecided, but if the numbers are dropping then maybe he could be losing ground. On June 11, 2008 an MSNBC article reported that Senator Obama had a lead among women according to the NBC/WSJ poll that was conducted. The poll showed that Obama had the lead by 19 points. The actual numbers were 52-33 in favor of the Senator from Illinois. In the same data Senator Barack Obama had the lead among Clinton supporters 61-19. That is a 42 point lead on McCain! The poll was conducted between the dates of June 6-9, 2008.
I also took a look at gallup.com polls, and found out some very interesting information. Here are the dates the polls were taken and who had the lead:
June 9-15, 2008: Obama (48%) McCain(39%)
June 16-22, 2008: Obama (49%) McCain (39%)
June 23-29, 2008: Obama (48%) McCain (38%)
June 30-July 6, 2008: Obama (50%) McCain (39%)
As you can see there is not much of a fluctuation in the percentages from the women voters. If anything, Obama has started to take somewhat of a lead, but that is only mere speculation. The numbers are primarily the same throughout the month of June going into July. Since this is the case, one could suggest that women are just taking their time to decide on the candidate of their choice. These numbers, I believe, support my theory that Obama has not been losing ground among women supporters, and that many are just waiting to learn more about him, and who is running mate will be.
Similarly, MSNBC reported on June 26, 2008 that Senator Obama had, according to the AP-Yahoo News poll, gained ground among Clinton supporters. The article stated the following, “The poll found 53 percent of the Democrats who favored Clinton for the nomination two months ago now back Obama for president. That's an improvement from April, when only 40 percent of Clinton supporters said they would back Obama over McCain.” So obviously instead of him losing ground he is gaining it among Clinton supporters. I believe that the numbers clearly show that Clinton supporters, and women across the nation, are merely weighing out their options, and waiting for the VP to be chosen. As always the websites that I used are listed below. Thank you for reading, and hope that you continue to stop by this site.
Websites Used:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25096620/
http://www.gallup.com/poll/108022/Candidate-Support-Gender.aspx
1 comment:
Alex,
It is good to see that you are staying on top of the facts and reporting them, instead of feelings and emotion that so many others report. Keep up the good work.
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