The Olympics are over and it’s time to focus on another competition: the presidential election.
The 2008 election was largely decided by women voters – and judging by a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, the 2012 election might be decided by children.

Well, not literally. But when analyzing women’s preference for either candidate and the key issues ranging from the economy to birth control, the votes seem to currently be split between women with children and women without children. At the moment, most women favor Barack Obama, but there are still a lot of speeches to be given and money to be spent until November.

The female participants in the poll indicated that jobs, education and health care are more important topics than abortion or contraception. Yet, it seems that women’s motherhood status is still a large influencer of their political choices:

• Childless, working women clearly favored Barak Obama (46%) to Mitt Romney (26%).
• Working mothers and stay-at-home mothers were much less enthusiastic about the current president. While still slightly favoring Obama, a much higher percentage of mothers (34% of working mothers and 32% of stay-at-home mothers) favored Romney.

In 2008 women predominantly voted for Obama. In the 2010 congressional elections, a majority of women voted Republican. Everything is possible in 2012 and both candidates know it: the war is on and health care issues and the stagnant economy are the battle grounds. Women have only been able to vote in this country for ninety-nine years, so let’s make sure we get to the booths and show that while every vote counts, every women’s vote counts even more.