Gender Gap Could End GOP's West Coast Hopes

Despite a set of high-profile female candidates, Republicans in the West are still losing the fight to win over women voters.

Scott Rasmussen has fresh data in Nevada, Washington and California covering four important statewide contests:  Reid-Angle, Murray-Rossi, Boxer-Fiorina and Whitman-Brown.  This analysis is focused on how the four different races are impacting women and independent voters and what the relative performance of the candidates in these demographic groups may tell us about who’s likely to win or lose each race.

The first thing to note is how uniform the gender gap is across the region.  Republicans are stuck in the low forties which is something like a bare minimum to remain competitive in statewide contests.  The second factoid of interest is that favorable ratings for these candidates among women almost perfectly mirror their share of women’s votes, with Angle being the only Republican who slightly over performs.

Independent voters, however, are a different story.  In Nevada, Sharron Angle is over-performing rather dramatically among independents, taking half the vote despite low favorability ratings.  These voters may dislike Angle but they dislike Harry Reid even more.  In Washington state we see a mirror image of the Nevada race.  Dino Rossi is pulling 60 percent of independents and has a 65 percent approval rating.  Rossi has room to grow between now and Election Day.  The other outlier is Meg Whitman who is under-performing relative to her fellow GOP candidates between 7 and 27 points.

A couple conclusions:

• Whitman has cratered among independent voters in the past two weeks.  Her approval rating with these voters has dropped 15 percent and her share of their votes by 13 points.   Message to candidates:  check the immigration status of your domestic employees.  How many surprises can there be at this point about Jerry Brown, a man whose record and personal eccentricities have been studied minutely for decades?

• Carly Fiorina is on the bubble and can’t be happy with Meg Whitman and the potential she holds to drag down the rest of the Republican ticket. Her best hope right now is a turnout model that skews hard toward Republicans and independents.  She should be praying that last night’s Gallup poll showing a 13 to 18 point GOP generic ballot lead is accurate.

• This week’s release of a taped “candid” conversation between Sharron Angle and the Nevada Tea Party candidate threatens to play a role similar to Whitman’s maid-gate.  Independents hate politics and especially anything that smacks of a backroom deal.  One of Angle’s greatest strengths is that she’s the anti-establishment candidate; this sounds uncomfortably like another establishment in the making.

• “Mom in tennis shoes” or not, Patty Murray is rapidly being driven toward having to go harshly negative if she wants to win.  She has to push Rossi’s negatives up and make sure her base turns out.  Rossi and his team should get their slickers and boots on and prepare a more-in-sorrow-than-anger response along the lines of “When did she swap her sneakers for stilettos?”