MEMO: The Digits You Need to Remember
For Immediate Release: Oct. 30, 2014
When it comes to analyzing the role of women voters in this election, what’s not being discussed are two important facts: (1) the electorate looks different in midterm elections, which we and others are working to change, and (2) virtually no candidates this year are running on platforms opposing women’s access to reproductive health care. To the contrary, even some of those with poor records on women’s health are trying to run as pro-women’s health candidates because these issues are so motivating and powerful.
-1 - That was the Democrats’ gender gap with women voters in 2010. That’s right — Democrats lost the women’s vote in 2010, the last midterm election.
+7 - The Democrats’ gender gap among women in 2014, according to the most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll.
0 - The number of credible analysts comparing the gender gap in 2014 to 2012, a presidential year when the electorate more accurately represents the views and beliefs of the majority of Americans.
46.2% - The percentage of women eligible to vote who actually did so in 2010.
+54% - According to NGP VAN, progressive organizations and campaigns have made 54% more voter contacts than we had at this point in 2010.
30% - The percentage of the target universe of drop-off voters for Planned Parenthood Action Fund/Planned Parenthood Votes that is made up of men whom polling shows are motivated to vote for candidates who support women’s health.
53% - Portion of all early votes cast so far that have been cast by women, according to Catalist.
$32m - Money spent by Republican candidates on television commercials in the 2014 midterm elections that have mentioned women’s health, abortion, or women’s rights — nearly as much as all campaigns and outside groups spent on ads related to these issues in the whole 2012 cycle. Virtually all of these ads attempt to show that candidates will not interfere with women’s access to health care (even when their records show the opposite).
77% - Portion of those committed to voting for Sen. Udall in a recent NBC News/Marist poll who said their leading issue was “looking out for the interests of women.”
$483m - Amount women saved in the first year of the birth control benefit under the Affordable Care Act in which women had no co-pay for contraception
250 - Number of bills to restrict abortion that were introduced in state legislatures in the first half of 2014, a year in which some claimed that attacks on women’s health were political fiction.
205 - Number of abortion restrictions passed in states, 2011-13, more than were passed in the previous decade.