Are You a Security Mom?

I’m like them in some ways. Married, I have a kid. I don’t live in the suburbs. I’m concerned about terrorism, but it’s different for me. Since I have a The Washington Post.

The study followed the views of married women with children from April through this week, and found they support Democrats for Congress by a 12-point margin, 50 to 38 percent. This, reports the Post, is “nearly a mirror-image reversal from a similar period in 2002, when this group backed Republican 53 percent to 36 percent.” In 2004, according to exit polls, Bush won partly because 56 percent of women with children voted for him.

What are they more concerned about than terrorism? Take a wild guess. They’re worried about issues that affect their families, such as rising gasoline prices and economic anxiety. This jibes with observations made by John Straayer, political scientist with Colorado State University, which I reported here. It may help explain why women dislike Republican Colorado gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez, as Paul Preston reports here.

It  also means that candidates such as Donna Edwards, who is running for the 4th Congressional District in Maryland, whom I profiled here,  has her finger on the pulse in shaping her primary campaign against incumbent Rep. Albert Wynn (D-MD) on opposition to Iraq and on issues that affect women and families in their daily lives.

The Post story takes a close look at some women from Ohio, where incumbents Rep. Deborah Pryce and Sen. Mike DeWine, both Republicans, face tough races. A number of the women interviewed said they were leaning toward voting Democratic. Pryce’s challenger, Mary Jo Kilroy, like Edwards, is running on her opposition to the Iraq war; her web site features a running tab of war costs and links to a video in which Pryce says she would not have voted for the Iraq war if she had been in office.

Dewine’s Democratic opponent, Rep. Sherrod Brown, is also running on an anti-Iraq war platform. He voted both against the resolution to go to war in Iraq and the USA Patriot Act.

Security Moms. They appear to be swinging toward the Democrats. But the Democrats should also beware. It seems like these women, who are likely not overtly ideological, vote on the issues-not on the parties.

[cross posted at www.muckrakingmom.com]