With the sudden surge in popularity for Bernie Sanders, I decided to check out the polls to see how he does among black voters. I had read that he had a bit of a problem with them, and indeed, he does. But, then I noticed something stark and unexpected: he has a HUGE gap among women. This is important to take note of and might pose a bit of a problem for the socialist Senator from Vermont.
It has been previously circulated all over the media that Ron and Rand Paul, libertarians generally, have a problem with attracting women. Indeed, both have a moderate gap between relative support from men and women. Ron Paul actually won Iowa among men. And then there is all the talk of the so-called Republican war on women (married white women think otherwise). Considering that most of this rhetoric comes from the regressives and socialists who now are big on Bernie, I expected that he would do at least evenly among women, with no significant gap. As it turns out, his gender gap is staggering.
CNN poll June 26-28, 2015, pg 46 (Democrats only)
I saw in the recent CNN poll that Bernie earns 20% support from men, but only 9% from women! Despite being tired, this jump out at me. Now, you might say “Oh, Hillary is running, so a lot of women support her.” This is true, women offer 63% support, while men offer 50% support. I am not convinced that she is necessarily the reason for the gap. Indeed, Joe Biden has a negligible gender gap and earned better polling than Bernie here.
Looking at a couple older polls that thankfully excluded Hillary, we see in a December 2014 CNN poll (pg 19) that Bernie has almost no gap without her running. However, in a Quinnipiac poll from April 2015, things are a bit different since Sanders was getting ready to announce by then. Notably, he does twice as well among men as among women.
It would seem that as soon as he became serious and started to poll well, Sanders started to “feel the Bern” from women. In a recent PPP poll, Bernie saw a sharp contrast between the sexes in terms of favorability. He enjoys 56% favor from men, but only 33% from women. His unfavorability ratings are very close, which itself is intriguing. In the actual poll, the gap remains: he does twice as well among men as among women: 13-7. No one else really has a gap worth noting.
PPP poll, June 11-14, 2015, pg 35
PPP poll, June 11-14, 2015, pg 36
I dont have an answer as to why this is, in fact, I am very curious about it. Hillary may have something to do with it, but it was shown that even without her, there is a gap. It cant be that he is old; so is Biden. I remember attending a meeting of the anti-Israel club at my old university. A few of the members were involved in the early stages of Occupy Wall Street, and I remember one guy lamenting that they were basically all white men, and had to affirmative action women and nonwhites into speaking positions. Perhaps women are not as socialist as we think. Ultimately, I leave it up to the reader to decide and judge. And whether this gap persists will be something to watch.
He also has some old newsletters, but thats none of my business.