The 2010 Election: What Does it Mean for Women? by Jo Freeman

The 2010 Election: What Does it Mean for Women?

The American people are angry. They have shown it by voting against the party in power three elections in a row. In 2006 and 2008 they voted against the Republicans. In 2010 they voted against the Democrats and did so overwhelmingly. This switch resulted in one of the largest midterm loss of seats in the House in US history.

People were angry for different reasons in different years. In 2006 they were angry about the war. In 2008 it was about the financial crash. In 2010 it was the economy — or more specifically that it hasn’t recovered fast enough from a deep recession.

From the early studies of the exit polls, the people who voted in these three elections were also different. The electorate which voted in 2010 was two-thirds that of 2008, and drew more heavily from the Republican base. It was older, whiter, and more conservative than in 2008.

There were some shifts. Many independents who voted Democratic in the last two elections voted Republican in this one. The overall gender gap — women’s preference for Democrats – was larger than in 2008 or 2006. Women as well as men were more likely to vote Republican in 2010 but did not shift party preference as much as men did. However, the size of the gender gap varied widely with each contest, ranging from four to nineteen percent, implying that local factors were very important in determining which party men and women preferred.

Despite some shifts in how different groups voted, for the most part Republicans won in 2010 because large numbers of the Democratic base stayed home while those in the Republican base voted in droves.

What does this mean for women?

Not only are there ten million more women than men registered to vote, but women turn out to vote at higher rates than men. This is true for every racial/ethnic group for which data are available. This difference has sometimes given the Democratic candidate a winning edge. Expect the Republicans to try to suppress the female vote in 2012 through such techniques as negative advertising, which tend to discourage voting.

There is still no evidence that women voters favor women candidates regardless of party. In California, where two high-profile Republican women faced two high-profile Democrats, one male and one female, five percent more women than men chose the Democrat in both races. Don’t expect the Republican Party to run more women in the belief that it will chip away at the Democratic base.

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The 2010 Election: What Does it Mean for Women?

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