White Women Swing Back From John McCain To Barack Obama

The swingingest of swing voting blocs, white women, are swinging once again, this time into the Obama camp. This group is swinging so far and so fast, kind of reminds one of cheetah on a vine in the African forest. Look at this huge reversal just in the past week, according to today's Diageo/Hotline poll.

--Obama/Biden 48%

--McCain/Palin 42%

--Undec 8%

--Obama/Biden's 6% lead is their largest in the Diageo/Hotline tracking poll yet.

--Obama/Biden are moving ahead among white women. The Dems now hold a 1% edge, 46-45%; in the poll completed one week earlier (on 9/16), McCain/Palin led 53-37%.

--Among the 56% of RVs who say the economy is their #1 issue, Obama/Biden are up 51-39%. Last week they led the group, which at the time only represented two-fifths of RVs, 49-40%. Among all RVs, 45% say Obama can best handle the economy, while 39% say McCain; Obama held just a 1% lead the previous two surveys.

Today's poll, conducted 9/21-23 by FD, surveyed 903 RVs and has a margin of error of +/- 3.3%.

The Gallup website goes into even greater detail, showing white women as a group are trending Obama, but Obama is not connecting as well with white women who do not have college degrees, particularly those between the ages of 30 and 49:

And, of course, white women are not a monolithic voting group. There are big differences in the level of support given to both candidates within subgroups of the white female population. For example, data show that Obama has significant problems among white women who are not college graduates--among whom he has been losing to McCain by a 50% to 37% margin over the last month and a half--and among married white women, among whom McCain has been winning by a 17-point margin, 54% to 37%.

In addition, Gallup polling does not show that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has helped Sen. McCain gain with this critical swing voting bloc:

Gallup Poll Daily tracking samples do not support the hypothesis that John McCain has made significant gains among white women since he selected Sarah Palin as his running mate. Instead, Gallup finds changes in white women's preferences to be little different from preferences among all voters.

MomsRising.org, a progressive group of mothers' rights advocates, is asking its 100,000-plus membership to ask Sarah Palin to give voters, particularly voting mothers, a better idea of where Gov. Palin stands on issues of importance to that group. It posted a letter on its website to Governor Palin today, asking members to tell her:

Governor Palin, if elected Vice President of the United States, how will you support mothers and families? Please address these issues in your upcoming speeches and media opportunities, including the Vice Presidential debate. Mothers across the nation look forward to hearing where you stand on our issues.

What do you want to bet that the response, if these women ever get one, is not going to be what they want to hear?

By Bonnie Erbe