War on Women – An Overkill

After spending millions to convince voters, especially women, that Republican Cory Gardner is an extremist on women’s issue, the latest round of polls show the Democrats’ “war on women” strategy has become the war to alienate men.

Mark Udall is losing in four polls shown below and one reason is that he’s losing more men than the de minimis advantage he is achieving from winning women. This is not news. We reported it in late August (The Gender Divide: Men Favor Gardner as Much as Women Favor Udall), but the campaign and its “independent” allies have ignored the data and run near saturation "war on women" advertising for more than two months.

In the PPP poll, Udall has a 4-point advantage with women, but is losing men to Gardner by 7 points, similarly in each of the polls (the Udall vs. Gardner percentages: PPP – Udall 43%, Gardner 46%; Monmouth – Udall 46%, Gardner 47%; Quinnipiac – Udall 41%, Gardner 47%).

However, the capstone of Udall’s failure is highlighted in the latest USA Today/Suffolk poll, which Gardner wins 46 percent to 39 percent, but most important, the gender gap has disappeared. Gardner is winning with both men and women.

This does not mean the gender gap has permanently disappeared. But, it does suggest as a template and blunt instrument for Democrats the “war on women” is over.

Janet Hook in the Wall Street Journal captures this story's national reach: GOP gains in key senate races as gender gap narrows (Oct. 24, 2014).

See:
PPP: Races for governor, senate remain close in Colorado 
Quinnipiac: Colorado poll, October 16, 2014 
Monmouth University: Colorado: tight race for U.S. Senate