BOSTON â€" With less than four weeks before the special Senate election in Massachusetts, Representative Edward Markey’s campaign is turning its attention to one of the most important constituencies in the state â€" women.
Women tend to vote in greater numbers than men and are among the most stalwart supporters of Democrats. In their Senate race last year, Elizabeth Warren beat Scott Brown by 8 percentage points overall but by 20 percentage points among women; Mr. Markey’s campaign is relying on women for the same kind of advantage.
And like Ms. Warren, Mr. Markey needs to appeal especially to women who are independents. Independents who are men tend to favor Republican candidates, regardless of who the Democratic candidate is â€" Ms. Warren lost them, and Mr. Markey will likely lose them too, said David Paleologos, a pollster at Suffolk University. But Mr. Markey needs to win at least 35 percent of independents in order to prevail, and he can do that by appealing to independent women.
“Independent men won’t vote for Markey,†Mr. Paleologos said. “His best shot is to focus on women, not only Democratic women but independent women.â€
And so it was that Carole King, the singer, who had been in Boston Thursday for a concert to raise money for victims of the Marathon bombings, took to the campaign trail Friday for Mr. Markey. She has planned a full weekend of “Women for Markey†events throughout the Boston area to stir enthusiasm among women voters and fire up campaign volunteers.
The Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts has joined the fight on behalf of Mr. Markey by highlighting his support for abortion rights as one of the most significant differences between him and his Republican opponent, Gabriel Gomez.
And an outside group over which the Markey campaign has no control is also stepping in with a series of online advertisements aimed specifically at encouraging Democratic and independent women to vote against Mr. Gomez.
Mr. Gomez, a newcomer to politics, says he personally opposes abortion but would not seek to outlaw it. His opposition runs counter to the majority view in deep blue Massachusetts, where a poll conducted in March by WBUR, the NPR affiliate in Boston, showed that 73 percent of voters said abortion should be legal in all or almost all cases.
Ms. King, appearing Friday at Zaftigs Delicatessen in Brookline, said she was supporting Mr. Markey, whom she first worked with on environmental issues, for many reasons, including his support for women.
“Ed is a strong believer in women’s health issues and making sure that women have their own right to decide for themselves,†she said as she was greeted enthusiastically by baby boomer women carrying her “Tapestry†record album as well as younger men and women volunteering for the Markey campaign.
A few weeks ago, Mr. Gomez was unable to answer questions from the Boston Globe about how he would have voted on the Blunt Amendment, which would have allowed employers to opt out of paying for birth control coverage for employees if the employers deemed it objectionable. Mr. Gomez said he had not read the amendment.
Since then, the Markey campaign and the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund have sought to portray Mr. Gomez as uninformed and unreliable on women’s issues. Various reproductive rights advocates appeared at the Gomez campaign headquarters the other day with a copy of the Blunt Amendment to underscore the point.
And on another front aimed at women, an outside group backed by a wealthy California environmental activist is aiming a slew of new media ads at college-educated women and women over 55. The group, called the NextGen Committee, is financed by Tom Steyer, a hedge-fund founder and environmental activist, who opposes many of Mr. Gomez’s positions, including his support for the Keystone pipeline.
(NextGen is one of those outside special interests of the type that Mr. Markey has railed against and tried to block from coming into the state. He has warned that such groups, like one financed by Karl Rove, a strategist for President George W. Bush, would be spending big sums for Mr. Gomez, but so far, no such Republican groups have materialized â€" only NextGen is here, on Mr. Markey’s behalf.)
NextGen is starting a series of ads against Mr. Gomez this weekend on YouTube, Pandora and Facebook, which allow their messages to be highly targeted. The ads, costing a total of about $125,000, were initially aimed at progressive voters in Massachusetts but have been refined to reach college-educated women who are 55 and older and who are either Democratic or independent.
“We can’t trust another anti-choice, anti-Social Security, pro-assault weapon and pro-big oil Republican,†says the ad on Facebook as it shows a picture of Mr. Gomez with images of Mr. Bush and Mitt Romney.
“College-educated women and women over 55 are very reliable voters in supporting a Democrat when the Republican is in the wrong place on issues like choice, gun safety, Social Security and kids,†said Chris Lehane, a California-based Democratic consultant who is helping Mr. Steyer reach this audience.
“We analyzed the prior special elections in Massachusetts,†Mr. Lehane said, “and it is clear Markey wins so long as these demographic cohorts (a) vote and (b) are aware of where the Republican stands on some key issues.â€
The images of Mr. Bush and Mr. Romney are important in reaching these women, he said, because the women view them as the electoral equivalents of Freddy Kruger and Norman Bates.
