WASHINGTON – Their grip on the Senate majority slipping, anxious Democrats aggressively courted female voters Saturday on the final weekend of a midterm campaign that will decide the balance of power in Congress and statehouses during President Barack Obama’s final years in office.
At the same time, some Republicans offered a softer tone as party leaders began to outline plans for a GOP-controlled Congress even with polls suggesting more than a half dozen Senate contests are deadlocked.
“We want to engage members from both parties in the legislative process, to get our democracy working again the way it was designed,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who would ascend to majority leader if his party gains six seats.
Plagued by poor poll numbers, Obama has avoided the most competitive elections, but used his last radio and Internet address before Tuesday’s election to seek support from women.
The election three days away will decide control of the Senate, the House and 36 governors’ seats.
“There isn’t a race is this country where the women vote isn’t critical,” said EMILY’s List president Stephanie Schriock, whose organization is spending millions to elect Democratic women. She acknowledged that Democrats’ traditional advantage with women would shrink considerably because women typically vote in smaller numbers in midterm elections.
Public research polls suggest that women have moved in the GOP’s direction since September.
In last month’s Associated Press-GfK poll, 47 percent of likely female voters said they favored a Democratic-controlled Congress while 40 percent wanted the Republicans to take over. In a poll released last week, the two parties were about even among women – 44 percent prefer the Republicans, 42 percent the Democrats.
Democrats have put women’s health and reproductive rights at the center of Senate campaigns – especially Colorado.
Half the ads aired by Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and those who are backing his re-election have criticized GOP Rep. Cory Gardner on women’s health issues.
Some ads have claimed that Gardner wants to ban certain kinds of birth control. Gardner has tried to nullify the attack by proposing that birth control pills be available over the counter, instead of requiring a prescription.
