Fact Sheet on Women's Monitor

EMILY’s List Women’s Monitor

Inside the Mind of the Woman Voter

The EMILY’s List Women’s Monitor is a series of national research projects designed to identify key groups of women voters; determine which issues resonate with them; and track women’s voting patterns and the gender gap in presidential and congressional elections. Each national Women’s Monitor survey includes a subset of male voters to obtain data on how women and men differ in their issue priorities. Since fielding its first Women’s Monitor survey in 1996, EMILY’s List has deepened its understanding of women voters through quantitative and innovative qualitative research.

EMILY’s List shares Monitor findings with progressive allies, Democratic activists and leaders, and national and local reporters, to educate opinion leaders and journalists on the vital role women play in elections and to help focus turnout efforts on key targets. EMILY’s List candidates and Democrats at large have come to depend upon the reliable, objective information in the Monitor. Publicity surrounding the release of each Women’s Monitor also demonstrates to women voters the tremendous power they have to effect change through voting.

Conducted by a variety of respected Democratic pollsters, the EMILY’s List Women’s Monitor has focused on a range of topics and key voter targets to build a comprehensive data file on the political views and voting behaviors of American women. In addition to survey research and focus groups, the Women’s Monitor has pioneered other innovative techniques to dispel myths about women voters and explain how they take in and digest political information.

  • In the “Diary Project,” EMILY’s List pollsters identified likely women voters who were undecided, and asked them to keep a daily journal of the political information they received during the last three weeks of the campaign cycle. The women recorded their reactions to ads, phone calls, web sites, editorial endorsements, campaign flyers, and debates. Pollsters analyzed thousands of journal entries and conducted exit interviews with each participant. These journals add a new dimension to our data on women voters gathered through survey research.
  • The “Picture Project” involved one-on-one interviews with voters culled randomly from shopping centers across the country. Participants viewed images commonly used in political materials — children in a classroom, the flag, military troops, a family saying grace — and rated each in terms of how well it represented their values and priorities for the country. Each was asked a series of open-ended questions to determine what values the pictures convey and which party they identify more closely with those values. The Picture Project provided the insight of a focus group, while the large sample size provided the breadth of a survey.

The 2004 Women’s Monitor

In the late summer of 2003, just as the 2004 election was beginning to heat up, EMILY’s List fielded the largest Women’s Monitor in its history, a survey of 3,827 voters (2,022 women, 1,805 men). The large sample size allowed pollsters to analyze the data using segmentation analysis, a sophisticated marketing tool used often in business, rarely in politics.

Using this technique, EMILY’s List pollsters created model clusters of voters based on similarities in values and behaviors. The clusters were developed using attitudinal and lifestyle measures like respondents’ assessments of their own financial situation, the concerns that dominate their everyday lives, how attuned they are to politics, and whether they feel voting matters. They were then analyzed according to political, census, financial, lifestyle, and voting history information available through the Democratic National Committee’s database of registered voters.

As the general election approached, EMILY’s List focused its Women’s Monitor research on women swing voters — those who regularly vote for candidates from both parties. In addition to gathering data useful for the upcoming election, the Monitor also gauged voters attitudes towards women candidates, and found that, all things being equal, 72 percent of all voters — male and female — agree it would be better if more women were elected to important political offices. The majority believed women candidates are better than men at promoting basic values such as family, community, and personal responsibility; improving education; making health care more affordable; and improving prescription drug benefits.

2005-2006 Women’s Monitor

How do women lead Democrats on the path to victory? What are the rules for talking to women voters and how are Republicans and Democrats breaking them? The 2005 Women’s Monitor is a timely and comprehensive look ahead at this important sector of the American electorate. The latest Women’s Monitor report will reveal…

  • A new landscape for the women’s electorate in the 2006 elections. Where will Democrats regain their advantage with women? Why are women defecting from the Republican party? Who are the best potential targets for Democrats and Republicans? They will be defined by a combination of demographic measures on the survey: age, ethnicity, marital status, geography, economic status, and religion.
  • The most comprehensive report of 2005 on the key cultural and ideological cleavages of American society. We will examine women’s views on the role of government; the goals of American foreign policy; the role of values in their lives and in government; their role as caregivers; and their expectations for the future. We will then examine how their views intersect with their perceptions of the parties and their voting behavior.
  • A nuanced understanding of partisan perceptions. The survey measures women’s trust in the Democratic and Republican parties on a variety of issues. By rating each party separately on a one to ten scale, voters in the survey offer a more precise comparison than the standard measure, which asks respondents to pick one party over the other.
  • An updated read on the gender gap. We’ll compare the attitudes between women and men on standard partisan measures to provide a comprehensive post-election look at this important measure.

The first step in a four year continuous study, this is the first report in a series of in-depth studies of women. The EMILY’s List Women’s Monitor is a national research project designed to identify key groups of women voters; determine which issues resonate with them; and track women’s voting patterns and the gender gap in presidential and congressional elections. This most recent survey included opinions from 2000 women and 600 men. Since fielding its first Women’s Monitor survey in 1996, EMILY’s List has deepened its understanding of women voters through quantitative and innovative qualitative research.