If white guys don’t dance, fight comes down to undecided women
THE battle for the US presidency may come down to voters such as Suzanne Hurst. She suspects Republican Mitt Romney will be better for job creation, but believes Barack Obama is more likely to protect abortion rights and access to contraception.
‘‘I’m still seriously trying to decide,’’ said Ms Hurst, 39, at a park outside Washington in suburban Loudoun County, Virginia, where the fight for women’s votes is in full swing.
Women have long been essential to Mr Obama’s victory plan, but they are particularly important now as his support has sunk among other voters such as white men and seniors. Mr Romney, meanwhile, is working hard to keep the President’s margins down among women.
Their efforts help explain why during Tuesday’s debate — on foreign policy — Mr Romney mentioned ‘‘gender equality’’ overseas and Mr Obama talked about the need to invest in education in the US. Both campaigns are reaching out to women with TV ads, direct mail, telephone calls and volunteers door-to-door. Mr Romney is making an economic appeal, arguing women have suffered in the weak job market. Mr Obama also has made an economic pitch, focused on equal pay.
But the heart of the Obama outreach centres on his support for Planned Parenthood, which Mr Romney has promised to cut federal funding to, and women’s health more generally. Unlike abortion, which is particularly divisive, contraception is widely popular, particularly with women. That makes Planned Parenthood politically attractive, as some women associate the group with birth control, even though some of their clinics also offer abortions.
Mr Obama leads Mr Romney by 11 percentage points among likely women voters, according to merged data from the last two Wall Street Journal/ NBC News polls, taken late last month and this month. He carried women by 13 points in the 2008 election.
The Journal data also show Mr Obama trailing by 7 percentage points among likely male voters, and by 29 points among white men. He carried men by 1 percentage point in 2008 and lost white men by 16 points.
Loudoun County is traditionally Republican territory that backed Mr Obama in 2008. In general, suburban white women tend to swing between the parties, partly because many of them — though far from all — tend to support Democrats on social issues and Republicans on economic ones. That makes them a particular focus as the campaigns make their final appeals.
Lining the fields of a community park here were mothers of all political stripes. Many agreed with Mr Romney that the economy under Mr Obama has disappointed, and many agreed with Mr Obama on retaining abortion rights and access to contraception. They disagreed about which set of issues were more important — economic or social.
Erin Abernethy, 36, a mother of four, supported George W. Bush in 2004 and Mr Obama in 2008. At first sceptical about Mr Obama, she decided last week to back him after reading Obama literature sent to her home about Mr Romney’s general opposition to abortion rights and seeing TV ads spotlighting Mr Romney’s promise to cut federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
‘‘I’m not pro-abortion. I am prochoice,’’ she said. She recalled going to Planned Parenthood in college to get birth control because she was uncomfortable talking with her parents about it. More recently, she took a younger cousin there for the same reason.
Nicole Richards, 42, said she was strongly supporting Mr Romney because she was concerned about the national debt and other economic matters. But she agreed with Mr Obama on Planned Parenthood and abortion rights.
Echoing the comments of other Republican women in the area, she said she did not believe legal abortion would be in jeopardy if Mr Romney won the election.
‘‘No one’s going to change that. It’s never going to happen,’’ said Ms Richards, who also asserted that the public wouldn’t tolerate the spectre of ‘‘back-alley abortions’’ that she said could arise from outlawing the procedure.
So the fight comes down to undecided women like Ms Hurst, an operations specialist at a national company. Asked for her most pressing issue, she said ‘‘healthcare and access to contraception for women’’.
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