… In the coming weeks, The Washington Post will be looking at some of the voters who will decide the fate of the next Congress, and assessing whether Democrats can maintain the coalition that propelled them to victories in 2018 and 2020. This “Deciders” series begins with a look from Colorado and how some women in Denver and its suburbs view the country, the issues, their families and themselves. …
Suburban women have been given various labels over the years and have drawn the interest of campaign strategists because they are seen as swing voters (though some scholars question whether they are). At one point, these suburban voters were called “soccer moms,” at another, “security moms.” But the recent focus on women owes largely to the divergence in partisan support between White women with college degrees and White women who do not have college degrees.
In recent elections, college-educated White women moved toward the Democrats; White women without college degrees, who make up a larger share of the electorate than those with degrees, moved toward the GOP. In 2014, 47 percent of White women with college degrees voted Democratic, according to calculations by Catalist, a Democrat-aligned data firm; by 2018, 57 percent backed Democrats.
White college-educated women have been described as a core part of the Democratic coalition, based on this shift. But the question of whether there will be movement back toward Republicans in November is of prime interest to campaign strategists. CONTINUED
Dan Balz, Washington Post
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