Election Aftermath
To say it was a good night for Republicans in Iowa Tuesday is a colossal understatement. While lots of places apparently did not get the “red wave” memo, you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere more “red wave” than Iowa and Florida.
Some folks I know on the political left discounted the Iowa results, including tossing out both the longest serving attorney general and state treasurer in American history. “Doesn’t take much to fill in one oval and vote a straight ticket,” they said. Which is true, it doesn’t…which is why I’ve been against it for years…and by the way, you cannot vote a straight ticket in Iowa anymore and haven’t been able to for some years. So discounting the Iowa results because of “non-thinking, straight-ticket voting” is false…all those GOP votes, in all those races, came from people filling out the oval in each race.
But here are some interesting numbers on a national level that say a lot about demographics…and marriage.
Nationally, married men broke for Republicans by 20 points. Married women broke for the GOP by a 14 point margin. So, clearly, married folks were far more likely to vote for a Republican than a Democrat. Even unmarried men favored the GOP, by 7 points.
But here’s the staggering number: unmarried women broke Democrat by a huge 37 points. In other words the gap between unmarried women voting for a Democrat and those voting for a Republican was 37 points.
What’s the one issue that might explain that? If you suggested abortion, I’ll bet you are right. It was not, as some predicted, the most important factor in determining voting behavior…but it was a strong second, and to a large degree, neutralized the votes of those who said inflation and the economy was key.
We talk about a lot of splits—rural vs. urban, Republicans vs. Democrats, men vs. women. But keep an eye on this gender-and-marital-status division going forward to see if it is a one-issue event, or something broader.
