Democrats' last best hope to salvage the Senate: Women voters

It’s a trend several Republicans privately admitted they are watching nervously, though some point out that one end of the growing gap isn’t bad news for the GOP. “I haven’t seen gender gaps like this in any race until this year, and we’re seeing them all over the place,” said Nicole McCleskey, a New Mexico-based Republican pollster for Public Opinion Strategies. “Typically people say we’re in bad shape with women, but it’s also that Democrats are not doing well with men. That’s why the gap is exploding like it is.”

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In Senate and governor’s races since 2004, the average gender gap has been 13 points, according to a review of exit polls from the past decade, and just seven races (out of more than 200 measured in that time) have had gender gaps of more than 30 points. (The 2010 Colorado Senate race, in which Republicans carried male voters by 14 points but lost among women by 17 points for a 31-point gender gap, is one rare example.)

Since August, though, independent live-caller polls of Senate and gubernatorial battlegrounds have had an average gender gap of more than 20 points, and the gaps have topped 30 points in multiple polls of three races: the North Carolina and Iowa Senate contests and the Massachusetts gubernatorial election. There are only three battlegrounds where Democrats have trailed among women in a Senate or gubernatorial contest, and only another three where Republicans have trailed among men in any independent live-caller poll.

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