Can McCain Win Over Women Voters?

April 25, 2008 — -- He's perceived as a moderate Republican, his position on abortion has been more flexible than that of President Bush and he's surrounded by powerful women in his family.

Does Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., have the ability to attract women voters back to the Republican Party -- even if he ends up running against Hillary Clinton, the first female presidential nominee?

Or will the gender gap continue?

Women have been more likely than men to vote for Democratic presidential candidates in every election since 1980.

McCain trails the New York senator and her Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois among female voters in the most recent polls.

And last week, he came under fire from some women's groups for skipping a vote on equal pay legislation supported by Clinton and Obama.

"Someone should tell McCain and the Senate Republican leadership that before the 2007 Supreme Court decision, this bill was the law of the land protecting women, people of color, older and disabled workers from wage discrimination," said Eleanor Smeal of the Feminist Majority.

McCain told reporters that he "would have opposed the bill since it could contribute to frivolous lawsuits harmful to business."

Yet equal pay has rarely been a high-priority issue in presidential elections and McCain's position is not likely to upset women voters, explains Ruth Mandel, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

"Equal pay has never been high on the agenda," she said. "Look at the debates. How many times did equal pay come up as a question? Not once."

Although McCain now claims that he's strongly anti-abortion -- polls have shown most women support abortion rights -- his position on the issue was more nuanced in the past.

"But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support [a] repeal of Roe v. Wade," he told the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco in 1999.

McCain has the tentative support of the Republican Majority for Choice despite the fact that the group only endorses Republicans who support abortion rights.