Gaps between which political party each gender typically votes for have been a part of elections since polls first started tracking the information. This year, the gender gap is problematic for Mitt Romney, whom experts say has had a hard time appealing to women.

Women have been more likely to side with Democratic ideology, and men with Republican ideology. The New York Times reports that the gender gap is near a "historic high” this year. 

 Since the first presidential debate in Denver, there have been 10 national polls that reported a breakout of results between men and women. These 10 polls used live telephone interviews on both landlines and cellphones in order to collect the most reliable and representative samples. 

Of these 10 polls the greatest gender gap was reported from a Zogby telephone poll for Washington Times that reported a gender gap of 33 points. This ranged to an eight-point difference, reported from polls conducted by Pew Research and the Washington Post.  On average there was an 18-point gender gap, with Obama leading by an average of nine points among women, and trailing by nine points among men. 

Though Mitt Romney pushed the past two months to convince more women to vote for Republicans, experts say he has failed to woo young women voters. 

“You can’t tell for sure but folklore is that Romney’s personal image doesn’t resonate with younger women voters,” Hout said.  Consequently, Romney has been working to reverse this idea. 

 “Romney made a huge effort at the convention to make a point that he was not anti-women, and that he always had women in his cabinet when he was governor in Massachusetts,” said Jack Citrin, University of California-Berkley Professor of Political Science, and Director at the Institute of Governmental Studies. 

Additionally, Mike Hout, Professor of Sociology and Demography at University of California-Berkely said that Romney said “peace” more often than “defense” at the debate last night in order to avoid losing women he has won in recent weeks.

Obama has used Romney's stances to critcize Romney and other Republicans.  Democrats seem to be taking advantage of the gender gap in the Senate, House, and presidential races.

“[Obama] is emphasizing Romney's, Akin's, and others' crazier pronouncements about reproductive health and reproductive rights,” Hout said.

Issues of national defense and reproductive rights are two of the variety of issues that present a divide between men and women voters.  In general, women tend to vote Democratically due placing a higher value on government spending on social programs and services. 

The gender gap present in the polls may also be related to other gaps.  Citrin adds that having more Hispanic or Black voters in a poll also effects results, as they tend to vote Democratically along with women. 

Hout says that the gender gap we see in the polls is quite typical. He emphasizes because today’s gap is “near” record high, that it may not produce results that are terribly different from past elections. 

Reach Staff Reporter Emily Goldberg here.