The future is female — or, at least, it’s up to them.
A new poll shows that an equal percentage of women plan to vote for a Democratic candidate as those who plan to vote for a Republican candidate in the November midterm elections.
The New York Times/Siena College poll, which only surveyed 792 registered voters nationwide, revealed that 47% of women are more likely to vote for a Democratic congressional candidate, while 47% are more likely to vote for a Republican.
NEARLY HALF OF VOTERS WILL VOTE REPUBLICAN AS ECONOMY AND INFLATION TOP CONCERNS: POLL
49% of likely U.S. voters said they planned to vote for a Republican congressional candidate on Nov. 8, compared with 45% who planned to vote for a Democrat, a New York Times/Siena College poll found. It’s an improvement for Republicans since September. https://t.co/0qzCzfQmbm pic.twitter.com/m9A4hIuekN
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 17, 2022
According to exit polling conducted by Edison Research for the National Election Pool after the 2018 midterm elections, 59% of women voted for Democratic candidates, and only 40% voted for Republicans. The survey featured 18,778 respondents.
The 2018 midterm elections did not end up being a fiery rebuke of President Donald Trump, as some predicted. The Democratic Party won control of the House of Representatives, going on to name Nancy Pelosi speaker of the House. The Senate remained under Republican control.
The apparent inclination of women to vote for Democratic candidates was considered largely responsible for House Democrats’ triumph in 2018.
In 2014, Edison Research conducted similar exit polling. During President Barack Obama’s second term, 52% of women reported voting for Democratic candidates, whereas 47% said they voted for Republicans.
If the new polling data is an accurate snapshot of the electorate, it could indicate the shrinking of the gender gap, where women are more likely to vote Democratic and men are more likely to vote Republican.
The poll also reiterated that inflation and the economy remain top concerns as the midterm elections approach. A larger percentage of voters (49%) also plan to vote Republican, while only 45% say they will vote for Democratic candidates. Voters additionally reported preferring Republicans to handle those top issues.
Notably, female independent voters shifted to supporting Republicans by 18 points, a vast improvement over data from last month, in which the demographic preferred Democratic candidates by 14 points.
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The survey was conducted in both English and Spanish by telephone from Oct. 9-12. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points for registered votes and plus or minus 4.1 percentage points for the likely electorate.
