For the last twenty years, Democrat presidential candidates have counted on women voters to win elections. This election is proving to be different because President Biden is losing the support of women voters.

Women are not single-issue voters. The Biden campaign is making a mistake by concentrating on abortion as the top reason to vote for Biden's re-election. It's fine by me that the campaign continues to go down that road because I'm not a Biden voter. I want Biden to lose in November. I want Biden's loss to be big enough that former President Trump wins with a mandate to carry out his campaign promises. 

Only a small percentage of women place abortion as their top issue. KFF, a nonprofit organization that focuses on healthcare research, has poll results that are not good for Team Biden. Biden is losing steam with women and with black voters, two key constituencies in his 2020 victory. 

Trump leads with men voters more than Biden leads with women voters. That is quite a statement five months out from election day. Biden's standing with women is the weakest lead a Democrat has had since 2004. That is proof of how close this race is right now.

Mr. Biden’s lead among women has slid to about eight percentage points since the 2020 election, according to an average of more than 30 polls conducted over the last six months and compiled by The New York Times. That’s down from a lead among women of about 13 percentage points four years ago.

And since the 2020 election, former President Donald J. Trump’s support among men has recovered and is back to the double-digit lead he had in 2016.

Granted, all polls are just snapshots in time. State polls are more important than national polls. However, voter shifts are showing up pretty consistently. The loss of support of black and Hispanic women voters is particularly pronounced for Biden. 

Why would women be moving away from Biden? It's the economy. In particular, it is inflation. 

The surveys show that even as abortion and democracy are key issues for a small but meaningful segment of women, concerns about inflation continue to play a more central role in the race and to benefit Mr. Trump.

In states where abortion is on the ballot, however, the KFF polls offer some evidence for the Democratic theory that the issue will be a motivating factor that drives women to vote.

The economy beats abortion. Abortion is a double-edged sword for Biden. He isn't attracting enough women voters by hammering on about abortion at every opportunity and he has lost women over the economy. 

Keep in mind - in most households, women are the domestic engineers. Women do most of the family shopping, whether it is groceries or clothing for the family. Women buy school supplies for their kids and worry about tuition costs. Women pay the monthly household bills and that includes the mortgage or rent, utilities, and insurance. Women see how much more it costs to make ends meet each month. 

Wages have not kept up with inflation. Inflation may be slowly coming down but prices have remained the same or continue to increase. I know I frequently write that 60% of Americans say they live paycheck to paycheck but it is an important thing to remember. It is an unusually high percentage and it points to how poorly the economy is performing for a majority of Americans.

Democrats think that women will come home to Biden in states where abortion is on the ballot. That may be true. Democrats used the issue to prevent a red wave in 2022. However, in this presidential election, women voters don't have the luxury of being single-issue voters. America is in too dangerous of a spot right now. 

Mr. Biden’s support among women is still somewhat more resilient than his support among men, which has fallen further, particularly among young men and men without a college degree. And Democratic strategists insist that traditionally Democratic constituencies, including women and Black voters, will return to Mr. Biden’s side as the race goes on.

Still, Mr. Biden’s current struggles with Black and Hispanic women are especially striking. He is winning among Black women in the KFF survey by 58 percentage points, but that represents a significant drop from his 86 percentage point margin among Black women in the approach to the 2020 election, according to an average of New York Times/Siena College polls from that election. Mr. Biden’s lead with Hispanic women has also shrunk substantially, to about 12 points. The survey found Mr. Biden’s lead among women overall to be four points.

“Once the campaign kicks into high gear, abortion will rally the women,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who has been studying women’s voting behavior for decades. “And as much as Trump wants to right-size himself, he can’t stop himself from bragging about how he overturned Roe v. Wade.”

Will abortion voters outnumber general voters who are worried about the direction America is going? Celinda Lake is a longtime Democrat pollster and she has a pretty good record. This election is a unicorn. Both leading candidates have been in the office. Voters are looking back to Trump's years in office and remember how they were living then. Times were good for all sectors of the economy in the pre-pandemic Trump presidency. Now the economy is tough for most Americans, the open border is creating a national security threat, illegal aliens are taking jobs from American workers, and crime is bad in cities across the country. Democrats are working to destroy basic American institutions. Biden has weaponized every federal agency to his advantage. America looks like a banana republic more and more every day with Joe Biden.

Women voters are looking at the big picture. Were they better off with Trump? For women not worried about abortion as a top issue or living in states where they feel the issue is settled, they are moving to Trump. Joe Biden is looking backward - January 6, saving democracy (whatever that means), political violence, and Trump's character. Trump is focusing on reminding people of his accomplishments in office and how he will make their lives better through his policies. He is offering solutions and new ideas. He inspires while Biden relies on dividing voters. 

Inflation voters are more likely to be Black or Hispanic than women overall. They are more likely to be middle-aged. In Michigan, nearly 60 percent of Black women say inflation is the most important issue to their vote. A similar share of Hispanic women in Arizona say the same. For these women, inflation blows all other issues out of the water.

Overall, twice as many women say they were better off financially under Mr. Trump, the KFF surveys found. Young women, a key constituency that Democrats are hoping to retain this cycle, were nearly three times as likely to say things were better for them financially under Mr. Trump than Mr. Biden. Even so, 41 percent of young women said there was no difference between their financial situation between the two candidates. Half of Black women also said there was no difference.

We'll see how this shakes out, especially in battleground states where the election in November will be decided. In the meantime, there is no denying that Biden is in serious trouble with voters.