At Take Back America this spring, Women's Voices Women Votes' Page Gardener discussed the importance of the unmarried women vote in 2008. One of her main points was that for the first time ever, there are almost as many unmarried women as married women, both at around 26% of the voting age population. Not only is this one of the fastest growing demographics in the country (10 million more unmarried women today than there were in 2000), but they turn out in smaller numbers than their married counterparts and are traditionally more likely to vote Democratic if they do turn out. For example married women voted for Bush over Kerry in 2004 55-44 whereas unmarried women voted for Kerry 62-37.

The importance of the unmarried women vote for Democrats in 2008 is underscored by the stunning results of a new poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for the Women's Voices, Women Vote Action Fund of 1,004 unmarried women in battleground states. The states polled included Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The results via press release:

A poll released today shows Obama leading by 32 points over McCain with unmarried women, with Obama besting McCain 61 to 29.  The poll demonstrates the importance of marital status in political choices - Obama leads by only 1 point with married women (polling 49-48 against McCain), a "marriage gap" of 31 points.  The poll, conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for Women's Voices Women Vote Action Fund, also shows no significant drop in support for Obama among unmarried women after Hillary Clinton left the race.

Obama has a particular advantage among unmarried women on the issues they care about:

When presented with each candidate's policies, unmarried women favor Obama over McCain on equal pay for women (73-19, a 54 point difference), on Iraq (67-27, a 40 point difference), and on access to abortion services (66 to 27, a 40 point difference).  Other distinguishing issues are health care (unmarried women favor Obama's policies 59 to 25, a 34 point margin), the economy (60 to 29, a 31 point margin), and gas prices (53 to 34, a 19 point margin).

And post-primary, while unmarried women have largely united behind Obama as the Democratic nominee, there is still significant room for growth among Hillary's core constituencies:

Among unmarried women, Obama is weakest with white seniors and white women without a college education.  While 56 percent of white senior unmarried women are Democrats or lean Democrat, only 48 percent are backing Obama, an eight point margin.  Among unmarried white women with no college education, 54 percent are or lean Democratic, but 44 percent back Obama, a 10 point margin.

Greenberg's conclusion:

Sometimes politics comes down to simple math. Unmarried women represent the nation's largest progressive base group and, according to current data, will support Barack Obama by at minimum 2:1 in November. Increasing their turnout--as a proportion of the total electorate - by 3-points will increase Obama's vote share by 2 points, unless views on the candidates change. In other words, rather than comprising 22 percent of the vote share, they would make up 24 percent of the vote share. Recall that they make up 26 percent of the voting age population - this simple math suggests that in unmarried women we will likely see the biggest potential gain in the progressive base.

The fight for swing groups like married women is important, but any progressive's overall margin among women depends on the continued loyalty and enthusiasm of unmarried women.

Count unmarried women among the demographic sleeping giants that Democrats, in an unprecedented coordinated effort, are poised to turn out in record numbers this fall, which will benefit not only Obama but our Democrats running all up and down the ticket.