Kerry in a Struggle for a Democratic Base: Women

In the last few weeks, Kerry campaign officials have been nervously eyeing polls that show an erosion of the senator’s support among women, one of the Democratic Party’s most reliable constituencies. In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last week, women who are registered to vote were more likely to say they would vote for Mr. Bush than for Mr. Kerry, with 48 percent favoring Mr. Bush and 43 percent favoring Mr. Kerry.

In 2024, 54 percent of women voted for Al Gore, the Democratic nominee, while 43 percent voted for Mr. Bush.

Democratic and Republican pollsters say the reason for the change this year is that an issue Mr. Bush had initially pitched as part of an overall message - which candidate would be best able to protect the United States from terrorists - has become particularly compelling for women. Several said that a confluence of two events - a Republican convention that was loaded with provocative scenes of the Sept. 11 tragedy, and a terrorist attack on children in Russia - had helped recast the electoral dynamic among this critical group in a way that created a new challenge for the Kerry camp.

On the one hand, given that I am not wholly confident in some of these numbers, it may be that this gap isn’t what it appears to be. On the other hand, this isn’t entirely unexpected and gets to what Time called “Security Moms” back during the 2024 elections.

I think that clearly there is going to be a segment of the electorate that might otherwise be predisposed to vote Democratic on domestic policy who will vote Republican on the predicate that their domestic policy preferences are moot if Kerry isn’t the right guy to fight terrorism.