What, these guys' party didn't dominate among women?
Nice try, GOP. Republicans are trying to claim that they improved their standing with women voters in this election, yet another version of the party's efforts to make themselves look better when it comes to voters who aren't white, male, and rich, without actually changing a thing. See, Republicans are claiming that they improved among women relative to 2012. Which they did—the problem is that the comparison is nuts.
Republicans lost women voters by 52 percent to 47 percent, which means they did worse among women than in 2010, the last midterm election. But they're relying on the general public not to know about the different voter composition of midterm and presidential elections and on political reporters to report Republican claims and facts as if they had equal standing. That would let the GOP fool people into thinking that Republicans won over more women in 2014 than in 2012, when the reality is just that too many Democratic voters stay home during midterms. Here's reality, making the apples-to-apples comparison:
Democrats usually do not fare as well in midterm election years as they do in presidential election years due to a significant decrease in voter turnout among single women and young and minority voters. But comparing 2014 to the last midterm election in 2010 -- a more "apples to apples" comparison -- Democrats have actually gained 6 points with women voters.
An analysis of Tuesdays' exit polls by Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the political arm of the family planning provider, shows that Democrats actually lost women by 1 point in 2010. But this year, 52 percent of women voted for Democrats, compared to 47 percent voting for Republicans. Women of color, specifically, showed strong support for Democrats this year, with 91 percent of black women and 67 percent of Latinas favoring Democrats.
No one who wants Democrats to win is saying it's not a problem that Democratic voters stay home for midterms. Ideally—from the point of small-d democracy as well as big-D Democrats—everyone eligible would turn out to vote in every election. But given the reality of who votes, we can see that Democrats improved their performance with women over 2010.
The next big Republican brag is "we won white women." And that's supposed to be all that matters, even though no one is going to come right out and say "because other women don't count." We're just supposed to infer that black and brown votes don't count because ... well, they're not white. That Republicans can't possibly be expected to get those votes, so it's unfairly stacking the deck to talk about them as meaningful, even if we have to count them equally when it comes to who wins elections. So, good for you, Republicans. You won among white women. You still lost among women.