The "war on women" narrative was particularly salient in the 2012 presidential election because Obama's campaign largely targeted female voters and attempted to spread the narrative that the Republican party and Mitt Romney were out of touch with women's issues. A 2015 Fordham University study by Deckman and McTague studied the effects of the "war on women" narrative and vote choice in the 2012 election with respect to two issues: birth control insurance coverage and abortion attitudes. They found that voters, but particularly women, who supported the Obama administration's birth control mandate were far more likely to vote for Obama than those who didn't. However, abortion attitudes were found not to be a strong predictor of vote choice in this election. This disparity was characterized largely due to a difference in conceptualization of the issues. While abortion was seen more as a moral/cultural issue, the birth control mandate was viewed more as an economic and social welfare issue. Due to these differences, it is difficult to tell whether the "war on women" narrative played a positive or negative role in women's vote choice in the 2012 presidential election.
