By Tracy Leaman

Read the original article at NDN.

Just as women make most of their family’s big decisions, buying a car, a house, women also seem to be making the big decisions for the country. Women have voted at higher rates than men in every presidential election since 1980 and the number of women votes has exceeded the number of men voting in every presidential election since 1964. Yesterday, women, who are more than half of all voters, voted 56% for President-elect Barack Obama. This is a 5% increase from 2004 when 51% of women voted for Sen. John Kerry, but only up 2% from 2000 when Vice President Al Gore took 54% of the womens' vote. The gender gap however, did not change at all from 2004 where there was a 7% gap and is again this year with men splitting their votes just about 50/50 between the candidates.

Unmarried women were really the ones who brought it home for the Democrats, voting 70% for Obama, this exceeding his margin among both young and Latino voters. This was very similar to how they voted in House races as well at 64% for national House candidates. Married women on the other hand preferred McCain 47-50...almost makes a girl want to say single!

President-elect Obama also received overwhelming support from African-American women at 96% and 70% of Latino women, compared to 47% of white women.

If you are a democrat, have you thanked a woman today?