Hispanics, women: Problems for the GOP?

As the presidential election approaches, Republicans must shore up their support among two critical groups: women and Hispanics. For the GOP, polls here are moving in the wrong direction.

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Tone in campaign rhetoric is important regarding women as well, and here too the GOP has challenges.

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The women’s vote in 2008 was a virtual landslide for Obama: 56 percent for him, 43 percent for McCain.

In the 2010 midterm elections, women and men voted pretty much alike. That may be changing, however.

“Now, female voters appear to be swinging back to Democrats,” writes Karen Tumulty in the Washington Post. “A number of polls show Obama’s approval among women has risen significantly since December, even as it has remained flat among men.”

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll out this week has Obama “benefiting from an increase in support from white women, Midwesterners and white, blue-collar Americans.”

The poll shows Obama beating Romney 55 percent to 37 percent among women voters. This tracks with another recent poll from the Associated Press/Gfk that shows Obama leading Romney by 13 points among women, though tied among men.

Most recently, that has to do with the controversy over Obama’s policy regarding birth control and religious institutions. Beyond the specifics of that issue (and Obama’s partial retreat), polls show most women side with the administration on contraceptive services and health insurance, as well as on abortion.

In retrospect, the Republican presidential candidates may have wished that they hadn’t spent so much campaign time on such issues.

“The contraception fiasco – exacerbated by Rush Limbaugh’s insensitive comments about a female Georgetown Law student – is causing women voters to abandon the GOP in favor of Obama and the Democrats,” Fox News policy analyst Juan Williams wrote on the Fox website Friday.

Karen Tumulty at the Washington Post points out that the same trend is appearing regarding Congress.

“When the Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey asked last summer which party should control Congress, a slim 46-42 percent plurality of women said it should be the Democrats,” Tumulty writes.

“But in a survey released Monday, compiling polling since the beginning of the year, that figure had widened considerably to a 15-point advantage for the Democrats.”

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