Dave Boyer, The Washington Times

Female voters have turned their backs on President Obama in droves, a development that Democrats vow to reverse as Mr. Obama gears up his re-election campaign.

In 2008, women helped deliver the presidency to Mr. Obama, voting for the Democrat 56 percent to 43 percent over Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican. Men split their votes between the two candidates almost evenly.

Black and white women turned out to vote in substantially higher numbers than their male counterparts, also boosting Mr. Obama’s victory margin.

There was a startling turnaround two years later. Mr. Obama wasn’t on the 2010 midterm ballot, but his agenda was. Female voters defected from the Democratic Party in historic numbers. Post-election surveys found female voters preferred Republican congressional candidates over Democrats, 49 percent to 48 percent – the first time in at least 30 years that Republican candidates received a majority of women’s votes.

“The explanation for that is really economic,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, new chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. “Women make so many of the economic decisions in households. And so the struggle economically is really borne by women, especially women who are heads of their own households.”

Some Democrats say a midterm shellacking is typical for the incumbent president’s party and note that Mr. Obama also lost ground with other key voting groups, including seniors and independents.

But Republicans say the reason for the defections go beyond the recession and that women in particular are reacting to Mr. Obama’s overall agenda.

“There is a solid reason why women moved away from the Democratic Party in 2010,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee Republican. “They want their problems solved. What happened with Obamacare was not health care reform. Females saw that as complicating the issue. They completely disagreed with the course of action.”

The latest Gallup daily tracking poll found Mr. Obama with a 50 percent job approval rating among women, up from a low of 43 percent in April. But a poll taken before the midterm elections by Kellyanne Conway for the Kitchen Cabinet, a conservative womens group, showed what could be lingering problems for the president. A majority of independent women viewed the health care law and Mr. Obama’s signature $821 billion economic stimulus plan as failures.

Said freshman Rep. Diane Black, Tennessee Republican: “More and more, women are the decision makers in their households. They set the budgets, buy the groceries, take the kids to the doctor. And they’ve been seeing not only their budgets but their choices limited because Washington is deciding for them.

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