Single Lady Voters Are Gold, and Politicians Are Giving Chase

By Hillary Crosley Coker | May 6, 2014 | 3:10pm

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Let’s talk about unmarried female voters: we are wildly popular and all of the political parties are fighting over us. Hey big spender!

While most of us vote Democrat, due in no small part to the Republican “problem with women,” we are kind of flaky. Our support can overwhelmingly put politicians in office — you’re welcome President Obama — but we are wont to drift away from the polls come mid-term election clench time like a high school boyfriend goofing off with his friends. For example, our voter turn out numbers jumped from 40 percent in 2010 to nearly 60 percent in 2012, when President Obama garnered a larger block of single women votes. But as mid-term elections approach again, our wishy-washiness is making political analysts nervous.

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NPR listed five points regarding the single lady voters, and here’s the rundown:

We are the most important voting demographic this year.

We comprise 25 percent of the electorate and our numbers are swelling as the marriage rate declines.

We are omnipresent.

Like the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Holy Spirit or 7-11, we are literally everywhere, in every state and in every town.

We are busy, and easily distracted because, life.

As NPR reports, we’re often stressed about work, money and raising our children alone, if we have some. We aren’t tied to community groups or die-hard church attendees where a politician could sell us on their platform, along with 300 other parishioners. We generally care about specific issues: the minimum wage, wage equality, college prices, reproductive issues and sexual assault.

If you threaten our wombs, we will come.

In the Virginia gubernatorial race, Democrat Terry McAuliffe conquered the problem of low voter turn-out among single women during a mid-term election. How? Well, he reminded his lady constituency that his opponent Republican Ken Cuccinelli was a big part of the “Republican war on women” and it probably didn’t help that he was wrapped in corruption too. McAuliffe won with a 42 point lead.

OK, we’ll come most of the time.

In North Carolina, political analysts are carefully watching the unmarried female voters because President Obama easily carried this Southern state in 2008 but lost it by a hair in 2012. The local ladies, who are largely African American and comprise a bigger than average percentage of single women, did not show up at the polls in 2012 or 2010. But that’s an opportunity for Democrats to mobilize that contingent especially if Thom Tillis, the GOP state house speaker, loses his lead to Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan. The Dems can cast Tillis as the leader of the local war on women, point to the state Legislature’s legal limits on abortion and drum up the single lady vote.

Time will tell how this all plays out, but remember ladies, you are hot shit right now. Make those politicians work for it!