October Weekly Focus: Gender Difference in Four Crucial States
October 31, 2012
October Weekly Focus: Gender Difference in Four Crucial States
Elizabeth Robinson
(polls through October 28th)
Note: all percentages based on 2 party vote, dk’s excluded
(Update, 10/31: Graphic corrected to show VA, not FL, in title)
Our previous posts have shown a very stable division of the gender vote for most of October both nationally and in the so-called swing states (based on polls through October 24th). In this post, we update polls through October 28 for four crucial states: CO, OH, NH, and VA. We chose these states because of their obvious importance to the electoral college, but also because in at least three of them (CO, NH, and VA), there have been some signs in late October polling that Obama’s position may have improved slightly, and it is interesting to examine whether this improvement is due to the gender division of the vote.
There have been 69 polls in these four states during October, totalling over 58,000 respondents. The average is 5,000 to 15,000 respondents per week. Still, even at these large sample sizes, we should treat any change in percentages of 2 percent or less with caution. Sampling error and other statistical noise does not disappear, even at large sample sizes.
The graphic below shows the weekly average gender division of the vote in the four states combined. The pattern is very familiar; after leading in September, Obama’s share of both the male and female vote declined in October, reaching a stable level of approximately 55 percent of women and 45 percent of men (one extra word of caution: this includes only 3 polls after Oct 28th).
Given sampling error and other noise, the best characterization is that these combined percentages have been largely unchanged since October 7th.
(click on image to enlarge)
The number of polls for each state are relatively small on a weekly basis (monthly totals for each state are presented in other posts), so we do not show them graphically.
Nonetheless, a summary of the weekly progression of the polls in October is as follows:
CO: Obama’s share of women’s votes in CO have been extremely stable at 54-55 percent since October 7th , with male vote stable at about 45-46%
NH polls have been somewhat erratic. With that caveat, it is the only one of these four states that shows some signs of an increase in Obama’s share of the female vote: from 51-53 percent in the first half of October (which was a major drop from September) to 57-59 percent during the last two weeks of October (which approaches the 60 percent among women that Obama enjoyed in late September and the first week of October).
OH: the gender race in Ohio has been rock solid stable at 56 percent Obama among women and 47 percent among men, with the overall Obama vote in Ohio between 51-52 percent since October 7.
VA: There is a mixed pattern in VA, with the Obama female share fluctuating between 54 percent (Oct 27) to as high as 58 percent (Oct 20), but the overall Obama vote in VA has been stable at 51 percent.
Summary Statistics for this Post
Number of polls and respondents by week (four state totals)
week #polls #respondents
Sept 30-Oct 6 6 6397
Oct 7-13 17 14980
Oct 14-20 13 11186
Oct 21-27 22 16512
Oct 28- Nov3 3 2192
Total 61 51267
Number of polls in October, by State
state #polls #respondents
CO 11 9876
NH 10 6228
OH 23 20106
VA 17 15057
Total 61 51267
Update in response to questions: polling organizations represented in this post
[number of polls and total respondents]
ANGUSREID 1 550
ARG 6 3600
CNN/ORC 1 722
FOX 2 2257
GRAVIS 3 4111
GROVE 2 1000
GarinHart 1 807
Gravis 1 645
LAKE 3 1400
NBC/WSJ/Marist 10 11407
NEWSMAXZOBGY 2 1674
PPP 11 8624
PURP 3 1800
QUINN/CBS 1 1548
QUINN/CBS/NYT 2 2542
SUFFOLK 2 1100
SVYUSA 3 2030
TIME 1 783
UNH 2 1318
WashPost 1 1228
YOUGOV 3 2121
Total 61 51267