In my experience living in western Michigan, many Republican women in the state are truly single-issue voters. They oppose abortion and won’t even consider voting for the Democratic Party despite being aligned with them on most issues. That’s why I’m not surprised that Santorum’s positions have not created a gender gap among the Republican electorate in Michigan.
Among Republicans in that time period [since December], Santorum has shot from 37 percent to 70 percent favorable.
There’s evidence that Santorum’s comments about social issues may not have hurt him so far among women.
The former Pennsylvania senator has been unapologetic in his opposition to abortion and his concerns about working moms, women in combat and contraception – some of the many examples he cites while making the case that he would draw a clearer contrast than Romney against Obama.
For all that, there’s little evident gender gap between Romney and Santorum, the AP-GfK poll showed. Santorum, who made some of the comments while the poll was being conducted Feb. 16-20, runs even with Romney among both Republican men and women. And Republican women may be rallying to his defense: Seventy-five percent of GOP women have a favorable impression of Santorum, compared with 66 percent of Republican men, the poll found.
Michigan has an open primary, so there probably will be a gender gap in the exit polls, but it won’t be coming from the Republican women, especially outside of the Detroit metro area.
It’s probably possible to create a wedge between being pro-life and screwing around with women’s health care coverage, but Romney, Gingrich, and Ron Paul are incapable of exploiting that distinction.
