Women Begin Vast Surge to Right from Culture/Feminist Issues to Economics: Romney Benefits

USA Today has very interesting poll numbers and commentary by a prominent Democratic Strategist, Celinda Lake:

Mitt Romney leads President Obama by four percentage points among likely voters in the nation's top battlegrounds, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, and he has growing enthusiasm among women to thank. As the presidential campaign heads into its final weeks, the survey of voters in 12 crucial swing states finds female voters much more engaged in the election and increasingly concerned about the deficit and debt issues that favor Romney. The Republican nominee has pulled within one point of the president among women who are likely voters, 48%-49%, and leads by 8 points among men. The battle for women, which was apparent in the speakers spotlighted at both political conventions this summer, is likely to help define messages the candidates deliver at the presidential debate Tuesday night and in the TV ads they air during the final 21 days of the campaign. As a group, women tend to start paying attention to election contests later and remain more open to persuasion by the candidates and their ads. That makes women, especially blue-collar "waitress moms" whose families have been hard-hit by the nation's economic woes, the quintessential swing voters in 2012's close race. "In every poll, we've seen a major surge among women in favorability for Romney" since his strong performance in the first debate, veteran Democratic pollster Celinda Lake says. "Women went into the debate actively disliking Romney, and they came out thinking he might understand their lives and might be able to get something done for them." While Lake believes Obama retains an edge among women voters, the changed views of Romney could be "a precursor to movement" to the Republican candidate, she says. "It opens them up to take a second look, and that's the danger for Obama."

The poll is USA Today/Gallup, so Axelrod can make another phone call to Gallup telling them he's going to pursue the lawsuit disgruntled former Gallup employee [supported by Holder's DoJ as a co-plaintiff]. However, the Gallup polls are starting to show that Mitt is liable to win---Gallup may be flipping Axe & his Chicago Mafia pals off, with which I flip them a supporting bird...!!!

Now, the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows Romney leading Obama 50%-46% among likely voters in the swing states. Men who are likely voters back him 52%-44%. The states are Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. Romney pollster Neil Newhouse says the poll shows "encouraging movement" in the wake of the first debate in Denver.

But of course, the Obama pollsters are skeptical:

Obama pollster Joel Benenson calls the method used to identify likely voters flawed. "In the last election, Gallup's registered voter model — not its likely voter model — was a much more accurate predictor, with their likely model missing the mark in 2010 by 9 points right before the election," Benenson says. "That explains why Gallup's results are way out of line with a dozen recent swing state polls that show the president with a double-digit lead among women." Among all registered voters in the survey, Obama leads by nine points among women and by two points overall, 49%-47%.

Of course, the Obama folks are famous for whistling past the graveyard and methinks they are waiting for Romney to make a catastrophic misstep in tonight's debate about two miles away from here. Prof. Watson of the Lynn Poli Sci Dept actually asked if I would lead a seminar on foreign policy at Lynn. My State Dept. resume impressed him.

Romney's improved standing among female voters is "likely to cause major consternation among Obama supporters," says Richard Eichenberg, a Tufts University political scientist who is studying gender differences in state-level polling with Elizabeth Robinson. "If Mr. Romney has tied President Obama among women in swing states, then he has likely taken a step toward winning the election. "But a word of caution is necessary," Eichenberg adds. "Although swing states share many similarities, President Obama's support among women is holding up well in some of them and less well in others. For example, his support among women is largely unchanged since the first debate in Ohio and Wisconsin, but it is definitely down in Colorado, Virginia and Florida."

Guess what! Women have trouble making up their minds, so hold the phone on the polls:

Newhouse declines to detail what the Romney campaign's internal polls show, but he says that after the first debate Romney's support rose among both men and women. He calls female voters critical in the campaign's closing weeks. "In general, women tend to be later decision-makers than men and the Obama campaign has gone out of their way to run a negative campaign against Governor Romney among women," Newhouse says. "The first debate had a significant impact on these voters as they watched it and Governor Romney appeared nothing like the candidate that was essentially a caricature in the advertising by the Obama campaign. It's these voters who began to realize that the picture being painted of him was not reality."

The media onslaught from the legacy networks and the NYT and its pilot fish is beginning to be seen as an immense agitprop charade:

Gallup notes that its likely voter model predicted a slightly more Democratic outcome than the actual results in the last two presidential elections, in 2008 and 2004. In both, the likely voter model more accurately predicted the final outcome than the registered-voter sample. The USA TODAY findings are consistent with a nationwide Pew Research Center Poll taken after the first presidential debate and released last week. Obama's 18-point lead among women in mid-September evaporated in Pew's October survey, showing him tied 47%-47% with Romney among female likely voters.

The rest of the article is also interesting.