Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

alp227

(31,959 posts)
Thu Jul 3, 2014, 01:29 AM Jul 2014

To Hold Senate, Democrats Rely on Single Women (NYT 7/3/14)

RALEIGH, N.C. — The decline of marriage over the last generation has helped create an emerging voting bloc of unmarried women that is profoundly reshaping the American electorate to the advantage, recent elections suggest, of the Democratic Party. What is far from clear is whether Democrats will benefit in the midterm contests this fall.

With their Senate majority at stake in November, Democrats and allied groups are now stepping up an aggressive push to woo single women — young and old, highly educated and working class, never married, and divorced or widowed. This week they seized on the ruling by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, five men, that family-owned corporations do not have to provide birth control in their insurance coverage, to buttress their arguments that Democrats better represent women’s interests.

But the challenge for Democrats is that many single women do not vote, especially in nonpresidential election years like this one. While voting declines across all groups in midterm contests for Congress and lower offices, the drop-off is steepest for minorities and unmarried women. The result is a turnout that is older, whiter and more conservative than in presidential years.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/03/us/single-women-midterm-elections.html

Some interesting comments out of the "NYT Picks":

The dumb:

Count me as a young, well-educated, female millennial who will NOT vote Democrat. I really can't deal with their exploitative pandering and lack of policies that actually allow women to empower themselves. Dems raise money off of victimhood.


Where'd you get your education, Fox News? Talk Radio? Have you SEEN the Christian Right's lobbying for Hobby Lobby?

Some more:

After all the adds have played, after all the babies have been kissed, after putting "boots on the ground" and after billions in campaign dollars have been spent, it comes down to which machine gets the most votes to the polls. If this group has the ability to organize and get the most votes to the polls for their candidates, then they deserve the win.


There is no good reason any woman, married or single or of whatever status you care to name or invent, should vote for a party that continues to devalue and insult them. And it follows that there should be no good reason for any man of any status to do so either since men and women are equals.


Wow, almost having reached that magic age of 60, the political demographics have found me: a single never married woman. What took them so long? Guess what America: single people (male and females) have always been part of the American landscape. We have just been left out of the picture. For the record, I never missed an opportunity to participate in our democracy by voting. It took my grandmother the ability to do so when she turned 30 due to the lack of gender voting equality. Now if we could convince the travel industry to eliminate the discriminatory policy of the "single supplement" which implies a diseased state to me.
2 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
To Hold Senate, Democrats Rely on Single Women (NYT 7/3/14) (Original Post) alp227 Jul 2014 OP
Does that constituency matter when elections aren't underway? nt delrem Jul 2014 #1
Yes. We are talking about one of my daughters. She matters, and she either votes or answers JDPriestly Jul 2014 #2

JDPriestly

(57,936 posts)
2. Yes. We are talking about one of my daughters. She matters, and she either votes or answers
Thu Jul 3, 2014, 01:54 AM
Jul 2014

to me. I am 71. I remember the pre-Roe v. Wade days. I remember when REPUBLICANS REFUSED TO PASS THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT. Democrats supported that insurance policy in our Constitution. Unfortunately, Republicans got their way.

I remember at less than five years old pretending to have a desk in which I could file papers on which I have assuredly scribbled all my ideas even though I couldn't write at all. My vocation was obvious then -- just barely out of the toddler stage. But no one would ever have steered me toward a career that should have been my destiny and that I only found out about very late in life. Why? Because I was a girl, a lower middle-class girl born in 1943, too early to benefit from the work of other women to establish gender equality.

Gender equality? You can thank the Democratic Party for what there is of that.

There have been some outstanding Republican women, but it took the Democratic Party to open the doors not just for them but for all the women in the country.

So yes, that constituency matters to the Democratic Party even when elections aren't underway.

Latest Discussions»Retired Forums»2016 Postmortem»To Hold Senate, Democrats...