Survey Gauges Why Bloc Stays Home On Election Day; Plus: Fighting For Third In '08

Presidential strategists, take note. In the last general cycle, tacticians noted that unmarried women could make for one powerful voting bloc -- if only more of them would vote. Around 21 million of them did not cast a ballot in 2004, and in an era when a national candidate has lost by fewer than 600 votes (Bush vs. Gore in 2000), a little more engagement from this group could make the difference.

Women's Voices Women's Vote, an organization devoted to getting unmarried women to the polls, released a new poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (D) that sheds some light on the demographic's biggest political priorities.

Seven in 10 said they are "almost certain" they will vote in 2008, and another 15 percent said they probably will vote. Just 6 percent said they won't. Those numbers sound promising, but many a pollster cautions that respondents tend to say what they think is the socially acceptable answer.

There's certainly reason for single women to participate, because about three quarters of them said the country is headed on the wrong track. That's just slightly above the national average, which, according to the most recent CBS survey, sits at 68 percent.

Respondents who didn't participate in recent elections were given a series of statements to pinpoint why they stayed away from the polls, and the most popular response -- given by 56 percent -- was, "Sometimes politics and government seem so complicated that a person like me can't really understand what's going on." The second most popular statement was, "Politicians don't listen to people like me," which applied to 54 percent.

In 2008, Republicans have some ground to gain to compete with Democrats for single women's support. GQR asked respondents to weigh on a scale of zero to 100 the favorability of a handful of political figures and groups, and found that the average answer given for Republicans was a cool 41. The Democratic Party scored far higher with a mean rate of 61. Seventy was the average for the general group of female elected officials, and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama were statistically even with 60 percent. John McCain came up shorter with 49 percent.

See the full poll for more, including what unmarried women have to say about the policies and legislative measures Congress faces this session.

Read the original article at National Journal.