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.

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One of the coolest things about Take Back America last week was the deep sense of cooperation on display among the various factions of the progressive movement. In past years, getting liberal interest groups to see beyond their own issue-oriented goals to work together has been likened to herding cats, but in 2008, with a newfound sense of solidarity as a result of having been together in the wilderness for 7 years as well as matured political and technological organizations, we are now seeing unprecedented cooperation among several groups all of which are devoted to mobilizing voters in unprecedented numbers in November.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Robert Borosage of Campaign For America's Future introduced an impressive array of progressive leaders who outlined their goals for the coming campaign season. Borosage put the amount these groups intended to spend in 2008 in the $400 million range, an unprecedented mobilization of forces on the left in a single election season.

Borosage included in his calculation Rock the Vote and Women Voices-Women Vote, which promote voting by young people and unmarried women, respectively; ACORN, which advocates for expanded housing opportunities; and the National Council of La Raza, which backs Hispanic causes.

Those groups are barred by their nonprofit tax statuses from backing candidates or engaging in partisan politics, but Borosage said they intend to spend a combined $75 million registering and mobilizing voters.

Then there are labor heavyweights SEIU, Change to Win and the AFL-CIO. They can spend money on both mobilization and partisan politicking. Plus, a Supreme Court ruling last year granted them more flexibility in funding and airing often hard-hitting issue ads right up until Election Day. [...]

As for MoveOn.org, which has endorsed Obama, Hogue said it would enthusiastically unite with the other groups behind Clinton if she carried the nomination into a general election showdown with the presumptive GOP nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

What's different this year than four years ago? For one thing, election law is a bit looser allowing more groups to coordinate with each other, while still not able to coordinate with candidates. But also, the political environment is much different than it was in 2004.

"In '04 the right mobilized its base and its resources," Bob Borosage...said in an interview. "Liberals mobilized, although we were still building at the time. Well, we've continued to build and expand and gotten more enthusiastic and more mobilized and their coalition has collapsed." [...]

"The progressive infrastructure was really evolving in '04," said Iliyse Hogue, campaign director for MoveOn.org Political Action. "Now what we've got is not only really good establishment roles, but also the kind of relationships and trust and confidence in each other that comes from working together in the trenches."

While the level of cooperation among the groups is impressive, each of them fills its own niche with its own set of goals. Some highlights from the press conference:

The AFL-CIO plans to focus on mobilizing 13 million union members in battleground states. They intend to spend $53.4m to fund a communications effort with union members to get across the message that John McCain represents Bush's third term. To that end they've launched the excellent McCain Revealed campaign. Promised Karen Ackerman: "Everywhere McCain goes working Americans will be there to confront him on his economic policies."

Women's Voices Women Vote plan to focus their mobilization effort on unmarried women who now make up 26% of the voting age population. For the first time ever, single women make up the same share of the population as married women and they are overwhelmingly pro-change and pro-Democratic. As Paige Gardener put it: "Unmarried women will be to Democrats in 2008 what evangelicals were to Republicans in 2004."

Rock The Vote, as you can imagine, will be targeting young people with a goal of registering 2 million new voters between the ages of 18-29. Registration is the biggest barrier to this group's voting; 82% that are registered actually do vote in the presidential election and to that end, Rock The Vote has launched an easy to use online reg tool, which users are offered the moment they hit the homepage. So far in 2008, we've seen unprecedented participation by young people; in state after state, youth participation is either doubling, tripling or quadrupling that of 4 years ago. Rock The Vote is uniquely qualified to tap into that excitement to translate to Democratic victory in November.

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