Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) predicted Wednesday that the gender gap between President Obama and Mitt Romney would flip in Romney's favor as the former Massachusetts governor focuses on the general election.
Speaking on MSNBC, Ayotte, a Romney backer, said that female voters are highly concerned with the economy, which would play to Mitt Romney's strengths given his background in business.
"I think that women voters very much care about the state of the economy," Ayotte said.
Ayotte's comments came a day after
USA Today and Gallup published a new
survey that found Obama beating Romney by a wide margin in key battleground states, boosted by a double-digit edge among female voters.
"I think that we're a long way from this general election and polls right now aren't going to dictate where we are in November," Ayotte added. "So polls go up, polls go down and you have to bear in mind we've been in a tough primary fight and I think that as we shore up and I think that he's now the sure winner of the nomination he's going to have much more ability to focus on the difference between he and President Obama."
Ayotte said that the gap among female voters was partially attributable to Romney's focus, thus far, on winning the Republican primary.
"Part of this gap is a reflection of where we are in the primary, and now it's going to turn around very much," Ayotte said.
In the same interview, Ayotte also weighed in on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) 2012 budget proposal. On Tuesday, President Obama delivered a strongly worded speech criticizing the plan. Ryan's plan is likely to be a key issue in the 2012 elections as Democrats hope to use it to paint Republicans as wanting to end Medicare. Republicans, meanwhile, claim that the budget is a fiscally responsible plan to fixing the country's deficit.
"I can tell you that in my campaign in November both in the primary campaign and the general election, every single ad that I ran was about cutting spending and the deficit, so in New Hampshire I'd feel very comfortable running on the fact that there's a credible plan to deal with this $15 trillion in debt," Ayotte said. "It really resonates with my constituents."
