95 percent accurate*

Sally the Single Mom

Forget Joe the Plumber. The dominant voter in Tuesday's presidential election will be Sally the Single Mom, or so says former Clinton pollster Stan Greenberg in an interesting new polling analysis released by his company.

Unmarried women make up 26 percent of the voting age population in America, he writes, and have always before voted in disproportionately small numbers. Evidence from this year's primary elections, early voting returns and polling results suggest that will not be the case this year. That's good news for Barack Obama, because unmarried women back him by nearly 30 percent over John McCain. Among married women, the presidential candidates are tied.

The Obama tilt among unmarried women is most pronounced among college-age women, young single moms and minority women. But it applies even to white women who are senior citizens. It suggests the power of the economy as the election's driving issue: unmarried women are typically among those most hurt by economic downturns. They are also among the most concerned about the nation's healthcare crisis and the soaring numbers of uninsured.