Why Isn't Hillary Clinton Doing Better With Women Voters? - CNN

[WillyT]

Why isn't Hillary Clinton doing better with women voters?
By Martha Pease - CNN
Updated 1:56 PM ET, Sat August 22, 2015

<snip>

(CNN) It's been a tough year for political prognosticators. First, almost all of them told us that Donald Trump's candidacy would be collapsing by now. Instead, the latest CNN/ORC poll shows that he is ahead of his closest Republican rival by 2-to-1.

Now, one begins to wonder whether the commentariat is also dead wrong about women voters.

Take the most obvious case: Hillary Clinton. Conventional wisdom has held that she would be virtually bullet-proof among a vast number of women who fervently want the first African-American president to be succeeded by the first female president. Just as important, Clinton has devoted much of her professional life to championing the causes of women and children.

In a country where women's pay remains grossly unequal and big corporations are still horribly slow in appointing more women to boards, she is widely seen as the best hope for breaking up the old boys' network.

Yet, in an odd political season, here is one of the greatest oddities: According to an array of national polls over the past month, many women voters have been drifting away from Hillary. In June, for example, a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that 51% of white women voters who have at least a college degree had a favorable view of Hillary, while only 38% were negative.

The same poll a month later found those numbers reversed: 47% negative, 43% positive. Among all voters, her favorability now stands at the lowest point in 14 years, even lower than in her struggles in the 2008 campaign. She is the one hemorrhaging support, not Trump.

Indeed, Trump's continuing strength raises questions about women voters, too. It was widely assumed after the first GOP debate and the furor it caused that Mr. Misogynist would drive women from his camp. It is clear that Trump has alienated millions of women with his sexist behavior and has high disapproval ratings with women, but isn't it surprising that in that new CNN/ORC poll, he not only leads the GOP field among Republican men but also among Republican women?

To be sure, Hillary maintains a much stronger following among women than does Trump, with 52% of women viewing her favorably in the latest CNN/ORC poll. That survey found that she would beat Trump in a general election by 6 points on the strength of her support among women voters, with 60% backing her while 53% of men would support Trump.

Still, the larger point is that Hillary is not doing as well among women voters as would have been expected a month ago and Trump is surviving among Republican women better than expected. Since women will provide well over half the vote in 2016, decoding how they make decisions is critical to both sides.

<snip>

More: http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/22/opinions/pease-hillary-clinton-donald-trump/index.html

[Motown_Johnny]

1. Decoding how women make decisions?

Well, if someone does that they can write a book and retire on his (I assume it would be a he) private island.


Or, maybe women are individuals who will actually think for themselves and not all go through identical decision making processes.

[olddots]

2. Willy is this a trick question ?

okay here is my trick answer sure to merit an alert ......

Democratic women are smart while Republican are ignorant .sorry ...........

[WillyT]

3. Just An Interesting Article, And An Interesting Point...

I hadn't heard those numbers until today.

[Robbins]

4. Here Is the thing

There is growing support for bernie with women.there are on social media on bothf acebok and twitter women for bernie.

Trump Is trying to sound like outsider who would do something different.of course some know he would be terrable but some don't realize that.

[CharlotteVale]

5. I'm a woman and I vote for the candidate I feel is on my side.

That's why I'm for Bernie Sanders.

[TexasProgresive]

6. A bigger question would be:

Why aren't there more women running for elected office, and why don't they make close to 50% of elected politicians?

[Android3.14]

7. Maybe women are paying attention

That's my guess as to why she is losing support.

[AtomicKitten]

8. Women are too smart to vote against their interests

[PADemD]

9. Conventional Wisdom?

Who did they interview, Chris Matthews or 100 Puma's?

If I did not vote for Hillary in 2008 because of her Iraq vote, why would I vote for her in 2016 when she also is in favor of Keystone XL and the TPP?

I voted for President Obama twice for four reasons:

He didn't vote for the Iraq War.
He wanted to close Guantanamo - not done
He wanted to get us out of Iraq - we're still there.
He wanted single-payer universal health care - the ACA is not single payer and not quite universal.

All in all, he's done a pretty good job, but I didn't get my pony.

[hedda_foil]

10. What this boils down to is the female electorate is sick and tired of politics as usual.

This struck me as key:

Clinton's eroding favor with women may also be tied up in their investment in her as standard bearer. Women I talk with of both parties definitely want to be a driving force in electing the first woman to the White House, but they also want the "right" woman -- not a politician who happens to be a woman.

This says to me that women, like men, are fed up with politics as usual. If that's right, Biden wouldn't fare any better, and likely worse.

[daredtowork]

11. Hillary loses women who care about the poor and income inequality

She tries to cover it by caring about children and global inequality, but that comes across like traditional rich white patronesses raising a few coins for all the right charities. She is like a Robo-privilegedwoman. Furthermore, Chelsea got all the privileges, too. She models all that is unfair in life and her policy does nothing to show she understands that: instead she's all about enabling crony capitalism through Third Way/New Dem policies or White Main Street corruption at the local level. Hillary doesn't get how she puts everything that's wrong with America on display.

As much as women might want to vote for the first female President,they can't vote for the symbol of everything that's wrong.

[DanTex]

12. That's obviously not true, since her support is highest among lower income voters.

It's noteworthy that the article in the OP singles out numbers from white women with a college degree, the closest demographic to the "traditional rich white patronesses" that you talk about. Hillary, of course, is anything but a "traditional white patroness." First off, she didn't grow up wealthy (unlike, say, JFK or FDR). And furthermore, she's dedicated her life to improving living conditions for less fortunate children (and adults) across the globe.

This explains why the lower income people and minorities have a more favorable view of her than wealthy white people.