With polls showing Mitt Romney losing ground with women voters, many in Washington have been buzzing in recent days over Romney’s “woman problem.” They’ve got it backward: It is Barack Obama who has the bigger problem with women.
When he took office in 2009, Obama’s job approval rating with women had reached 70 percent; today it has slipped to 49 percent — a precipitous decline of 21 points. This is why the president has been working overtime to court the women’s vote — weighing in on whether women should be admitted to the Augusta National Golf Club (even though nobody asked what he thought); publicly taking the side of a female Georgetown University law student in her spat with Rush Limbaugh; and forcing religious employers to provide coverage for contraception and abortion-inducing drugs.
But here’s the interesting thing: It’s not working. As these controversies have dominated the news in recent weeks, Obama’s approval rating among women has not gone up; it has actually declined slightly. Why is that? Perhaps it’s because country club membership and who pays for birth control are not the issues women voters are most concerned about.
The No. 1 issue women said was a priority for them is health care. Obamacare remains deeply unpopular with the American people, and women are even more opposed to it than men.Far from having the upper hand when it comes to the women’s vote, Obama is either vulnerable or in deep trouble on almost every key issue women voters say they care about.
The No. 2 issue women identified on their list of priorities: Gas prices. Not a winning issue for the president.
The No. 3 issue for women? Unemployment.
The No. 4 issue for women? The national debt.
