In the air war this week it's all about women. Both President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee have put out ads targeting female voters.
Romney appears to be closing the traditional Republican gender gap. ABC News-Washington Post polling puts the president up by nine points among female registered voters but when you look at how that stacks up against Romney's predecessors, a nine point gap looks pretty good against McCain's 13 percent or George Bush's 11.
"I think women today are more focused on fiscal matters and financial matters and of course he excels in those areas," Laura Peter, head of Romney's campaign volunteer effort in San Francisco, said.
Peter doesn't believe the abortion issue will be a factor in this election.
Melinda Jackson is an associate professor of political science at San Jose State University.
"Each party, I think, is going to be focusing on trying to target the women that they think will support them," she said.
Jackson says Romney's campaign will focus on white married and older women while Obama's campaign aims for younger and single women.
"Both campaigns are looking more and more at this micro targeting of specific groups of voters," she said.
In this week's debate, Romney tried to score points by telling a story about how he recruited women to serve in his cabinet when he was governor of Massachusetts. He did have a more than 40 percent but he just didn't go out and recruit them, those "binders full of women" were handed to him by a woman's group that came to him even before he was elected.
