Women Coming Back to the Democrats?

"The Gender Gap," an advantage Democrats had among women voters (until the candidacy of John Kerry) seems to be coming back, according to a polling memo released yesterday and published this morning in the WashPost. The poll found that women "picked unnamed Democratic congressional candidates over Republicans by a 13-point margin." The issues driving this turn-around are all economic: "...concerns like retirement, health care and economic security are trumping the sorts of homeland security concerns that dominated women's issue agenda before the last election."

Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway said that she agreed with the general conclusions. "Women, if left to their own devices, are going to tend and trend Democratic. That is absolutely the case," she said. "Women are still congenitally Democratic -- and I'm the Republican pollster saying that."