One of the prominent lines of attack used by Democrat Creigh Deeds in the Virginia gubernatorial contest involved a graduate dissertation Republican candidate Bob McDonnell wrote in 1989 in which he suggested that working women were detrimental to the family. McDonnell was called “anti-women,” and Democrats tried to make the election a referendum on the so-called “women’s issues.” As the campaign progressed, however, polls showed that the attack wasn’t working. And, now we have the results from the voters themselves. Women supported McDonnell over Deeds, by a margin of 54 to 46 percent. Men voted for McDonnell in larger numbers (62 percent for him, 37 percent for Deeds) in a pattern we have seen in almost every major election in our politics since 1980, with men being more likely to support Republican candidates than women. Or, if you prefer, women being more Democratic. But perhaps more striking than the overall numbers were the results among working women. Twenty-eight percent of women checked the exit poll box indicating that they worked full time for pay. McDonnell won them, too, by 51 to 49 percent.
