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WOMEN AND HILLARY. Some interesting data in the update at the end of Scott Winship's post on Hillary Clinton's electability:
I've tabulated some evidence from the 2004 National Election Study. Women, but not men, rated Clinton higher than they did Kerry on a "thermometer" scale where 0 equals very cool feelings and 100 equals extreme warmth. The average for Clinton was 59, versus 54 for Kerry. Men rated both between 50 and 51. So Carville and Penn seem correct here. On the other hand, Clinton's boost among married women was no larger than her boost among married men, and much smaller than among single women. Married women rated Clinton 53 and Kerry 50, compared with 48 and 46 for married men and 66 and 59 for single women. Among Republican women, there was no boost, and she was barely any more popular than among Republican men. The average score for Clinton was 31, compared with 32 for Kerry. The figures for Democratic women were 80 and 73; for Republican men, 28 and 29. Finally, Clinton averaged 63 among independent women, while Kerry averaged just 55. Among independent men, on the other hand, she averaged 52 to Kerry's 54. So while there's some evidence a Clinton presidency would energize independent women (including married independent women, which I don't show here), there's little to indicate that it would convert other married women or Republican women.So there you have it. I should say that I'm always a little bit suspicious of the use of marital status as a demographic category in political analysis. The pool of non-married women is very different from the pool of married women -- younger, blacker, poorer, different educational profile -- in so many ways that it's hard to know if marriage per se is driving the "marriage gap" phenomena.
--Matthew Yglesias
