Zogby Polling: Women Deserting Hillary?

Zogby polls in the past week show steadily declining support for Hillary among women. Blacks, and under 70s. moving to Obama driving the change.

Zogby phone polls in Indiana and North Carolina suggest that women are deserting Hillary.

In the gender war, Obama seems to have made serious progress, holding the edge on males and pulling ahead, though statistically insignificantly, with females. Frankly, it's hard to believe that Hillary has lost the edge in the female vote. But checking the progression over the past few days seems to bear this out.

May 6 Zogby Poll	Gender
	Total	Male	Female
	%	%	%
Hillary Clinton	42.8	41.5	43.8
Barack Obama	45.3	46.7	44.3
Someone else	4.8	6.4	3.5
NS	7.0	5.4	8.4
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0

First, let's compare today's poll to the April 22 poll results for Pennsylvania: From April 22 to May 5 there's a huge change--- from a 13.5 lead for hillary to a .5 lead for Obama. That's a 14% drop. It's hard to buy, so let's check recent polls.

PA 4/22 Zogby Poll	Gender
	Total	Male	Female
	%	%	%
Hillary Clinton	48.2	42.3	53.1
Barack Obama	42.1	45.0	39.6
Someone else	3.6	5.3	2.2
NS	6.1	7.4	5.1
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0

Just two days earlier, on May 4, Hillary holds a 4.6 advantage among women

May 4 Indiana	Gender			US Direction
	Total	Male	Female	Right	Wrong	NS
	%	%	%	%	%	%
Hillary Clinton	41.3	38.1	43.9	41.2	41.5	37.4
Barack Obama	42.8	47.0	39.3	33.2	44.9	26.0
Someone else	7.9	8.1	7.7	20.6	5.6	19.7
NS	8.0	6.8	9.1	5.0	8.0	16.9
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0

And two days earlier, on May 2, Hillary had even stronger support from women-- a 7.6 advantage..

May 2 Indiana	Gender			US Direction
	Total	Male	Female	Right	Wrong	NS
	%	%	%	%	%	%
Hillary Clinton	41.7	37.1	45.4	40.1	41.5	47.5
Barack Obama	42.3	47.7	37.8	29.3	44.7	24.6
Someone else	7.4	8.7	6.2	20.9	5.8	9.2
NS	8.7	6.4	10.6	9.6	8.0	18.7
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0

Are women abandoning Hillary? The series of polls seems to suggest a gradual decline.

The results for North Carolina support the Indiana findings, for gender AND for ideology.

	Gender			AgeGroup				Ideology
	Total	Male	Female	18-29				Prog	Lib	Mod	Cons	VCons	Libert
	%	%	%	%				%	%	%	%	%	%
Hillary Clinton	37.1	33.7	39.9	23.9				18.8	38.4	41.0	41.3	18.6	21.7
Barack Obama	51.0	56.0	46.9	62.2				77.8	51.8	48.0	41.1	55.8	78.3
Someone else	3.6	3.5	3.6	5.0				2.5	1.4	2.4	8.2	15.2
NS	8.3	6.9	9.6	8.9				.9	8.4	8.5	9.4	10.3
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0				100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0

With such startling numbers, I contacted Zogby and they explained that for North Carolina, the strong black vote is skewing the female vote. For Indiana, the Zogby organization spokesman, explained, "The defection of women from Hillary appears to be among her base of older women in Indiana - particularly those age 55-64, where she has lost significant ground."

Next we look at ideology, and it's clear that Obama has much stronger support among progressives, less strong among liberals and Hillary is the strongest among conservatives. Why is that not a surprise?

May 6 Indiana	Ideology
	Total	Prog	Lib	Mod	Cons	VCons	Libert
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Hillary Clinton	42.9	30.7	42.6	39.4	53.7	30.8	30.5
Barack Obama	45.0	63.3	49.9	48.4	32.9	26.5	36.3
Someone else	5.0		3.2	3.0	6.7	42.7	6.8
NS	7.0	5.9	4.3	9.2	6.7		26.4
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0

Now let's look at the April 22 PA poll. Obama is not looking nearly as good here, losing the liberals and moderates. Maybe Hillary's attacks on Moveon.org and her glowing support from William Cristol, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough are sinking in.

	Ideology
	Total	Prog	Lib	Mod	Cons	VCons	Libert
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Hillary Clinton	48.7	30.0	49.7	52.9	55.2	76.0	32.4
Barack Obama	42.2	58.5	43.3	38.1	34.5		67.6
Someone else	3.6	2.1	1.9	4.9	4.7	12.8
NS	5.5	9.4	5.2	4.2	5.6	11.1
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0

Of course, Zogby could be wrong. His methodology for selecting his polling sample may be off, which would explain the hard to believe female support for Obama. We'll see in 11 or 12 hours.