Women Voters in Older Age Groups Voting for Hillary Clinton
May 3, 2008
Miami, Florida (WiredPRNews.com) — As the race gets closer for people to start deciding on the democratic nominee for president, older women are leaning towards Senator Hillary Clinton, while younger women toward Senator Barack Obama. While Clinton has cut into Obama’s lead in the polls, he is still campaigning hard for the nomination. With 1,792 delegates vs. Clinton’s 1,592 Obama leads for now.
In the Democratic primaries so far, women have voted in larger numbers than men. In the 13 states that Hillary Clinton has won, she owed her victories in no small part to a majority female vote–a sign that a female president is an important election issue for women overall. Among young women, however, that girl-power momentum evaporates, and Barack Obama is the favored candidate. What happens–or hasn’t yet happened–to young women that explains this gap? The answer can be found on college campuses.
Youth voting articles and information, routinely fail to address gender, focusing instead on how young people are picking the candidate who has their “aspirations” and “attitudes.” But it’s important to ask why gender, as an issue, is in a position to be ignored. At colleges today, women receive better grades than men and take home more honors degrees; they are more likely to get internships and be involved in campus organizations. They have stronger college applications than men, and have been outnumbering men in enrollment as a result for 25 years.
According to Department of Education projections, by 2012, there will be roughly 142 women graduating for every 100 men. In other words, for four dreamy years, women run the show and that is hurting Hillary Clinton’s quest for young female voters.
Wired Government Reporter
