Constant women:

...The recent shift in women's preference for the Democratic party is reflected in differences both in how men and women evaluate the two parties' capacity to handle major problems and in their identification with party...

...JEREMIAH BARUCH...

...The gender gap has persisted in the polling booths as well as in the polls...

...MOZARTS Despina is currently singing to Democrats and Republicans alike in the Washington Opera Society's production of Cosi Fan Tutte but the latter no doubt wish that women would take Despina's words to heart-at least where approval of Ronald Reagan is concerned...

...The next largest was with Richard Nixon...

...What is remarkable for pollsters and politicians alike is that this is the first time that significant differences in presidential approval have appeared between men and women-with the differences three times as large as any previous gap for our last six presidents...

...In three contests for governor (Iowa, Michigan, and New York) and two for senator (California and Virginia), a majority of women voted for the Democrat and a majority of men voted for the Republican...

...That may very well be the case...

...Apparently, his handling of the invasion of Grenada and the patriotic upsurge after the Lebanon bombing have politically benefited him-for the moment...

...Given their majority of the voting age population and increasing turnout, almost 53 percent of the 1982 voters were women...

...In that poll, 57 percent of men-and only 39 percent of women-approved of Reagan's job performance...

...They have consistently rated his overall handling of the presidency eight to ten percentage points more critically than men, according to the Gallup Poll, which has compiled ratings by sex for all presidents since Eisenhower...

...In the past thirty years there has been a gradual change-in 1952, 51 percent of those identifying themselves as Democrats were women, as opposed to 54 percent of the Republicans...

...Not only are women becoming more Democratic, but men are also becoming more Republican-so why is the focus on the women's vote...

...At the conclusion of the meeting, Democratic National Committee political director Ann Lewis said, "The gender gap is the Grand Canyon of American politics...

...Democratic party leaders met for three days, November 11-13 at White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, to discuss the 1984 campaign, buoyed by the previous week's election and sanguine about rebuilding the old coalition with an emphasis on turning out the votes of women and blacks...

...The "gender gap" was first reported in the 1980 election-day exit polls conducted by New York Times/CBS and NBC/Associated Press-men voted a 20 point margin in favor of Reagan while women evenly split between Reagan and Carter...

...Women's voting turnout had lagged behind the men-but no longer...

...the swaying boughs, the fickle breezes have greater stability than men have . . . O women, let us pay with the same token this maleficent, indiscreet species...

...by 1982, almost 59 percent of identified Democrats and just under 50 percent of Republicans were women...

...A June 1983 New York Times/CBS poll revealed that over a two month span, men had increased their approval of the president by nine percent while women's disapproval remained virtually the same-resulting in an 18 point difference between the sexes...

...At the beginning of this year, Dr...

...But the pattern differed by state...

...Ronald Reagan's ratings have improved in the most recent trial heats...

...The Washington Post/ABC exit poll revealed that women favored Democratic gubernatorial candidates by six more points than did men...

...If turnout was taken into account, the differences disappeared...

...Among persons under age 55, the turnout rates of women exceed that of men...

...While women's attitudes toward Reagan have remained relatively (and negatively) constant, "men," as columnist Ellen Goodman has noted, "have been far more fickle...

...This difference between sexes is the largest in mid-term elections since the sixties and fifties when women were more likely to favor Republican congressional candidates-a gap which could largely be explained by differences in turnout: the women who went to the polls were older, better educated, and had higher incomes than the men who voted, and'hence were more likely to vote Republican...

...According to a September Washington Post/ABC poll, while Senator Glenn and President Reagan equally divide the male vote in a trial run, women favor Glenn by a 20 point margin...

...The latter factor is particularly important, given that party identification is a significant long-term predictor of voting behavior...

...Already there is a marked difference between men and women in the early polls of voting preferences for 1984...

...How long-lasting this reprieve will be may well depend on the durability of the "gender gap," which itself will depend on what issues gain prominence in voting decisions as the campaign unfolds...

...If war and peace issues continue to dominate the agenda, the gap may widen, aided, as the evidence appears, by the prominence given to economic issues which have particular impact on single and divorced women (who have been 10 to 15 percentage points more critical than married women of Reagan's foreign and economic policies...

...Considering that by 1984, according to Jerry Jennings of the Census Bureau, the young women who are voting more than young men will replace older women with lower voting rates, the women's votes could be decisive for the 1984 presidential election...

...Senator Mondale slips six percent behind Reagan among men, but pulls ahead by eleven points with women...

...it could be a long fall...

...In the 1982 midterm elections all the network exit polls reported that women were more likely than men to vote for a Democratic congressional candidate, the difference ranging from 4 to 5.5 percentage points...

...Of course, what strikes a shrill note for many a Republican aficionado is that these attitudes have been and can again be, translated into votes...

...A Post/ABC survey of November 3-7 showed him edging ahead of both leading Democratic contenders for the first time since April...

...George Gallup found that the "gender gap" is found "in every major population subgroup...

...According to the American Election Study, the 1982 difference between the sexes in party identification was the largest in thirty years...

...While explanations of why the "gender gap" has recently arisen are still incomplete, part of the answer is that there is a pronounced pattern of differing attitudes between men and women towards the use of force...

...This translates into just under six million additional votes nationally...

...In other races such as the New Jersey Senate contest (Frank Lautenberg versus Millicent Fenwick), support was evenly split...

...it is wide, it is deep, and it is beautiful...

...Throughout his first thirty-four months, women have been steadfast in their disapproval of Ronald Reagan...

...With women voting 8.5 to 9 percentage points more Democratic, a difference between the sexes appeared that was larger than in any other presidential election since 1952 (the earliest date for which data is available...

...It exists both among groups that have included the president's strongest supporters (e.g., a 12 point difference between Republican men, with 74 percent approval and Republican women, with only 62 percent approval) and also among those groups least supportive (e.g., 16 percent of black men but only 6 percent of black women approve of Ronald Reagan's job performance...

...But whatever candidate ends up riding that Democratic mule on the campaign trail must be very careful not to slip down that canyon...

...A New York Times/CBS Poll taken during the week of the Grenada invasion found a difference of 17.5 percent between the sexes in approval of the action, one of the largest "gaps" observed during the Reagan presidency...

...Women traditionally have been somewhat more inclined to identify with a political party...