Female voters not thrilled with Palin, poll says

John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate isn't paying dividends with many women -- at least not according to a national poll released this morning and conducted for a group backing Barack Obama.

The survey done for EMILY's List, a political action committee that supports female candidates who support abortion rights, found that the Democratic ticket leads among female voters 52 percent to 41 percent, and 53 percent of female voters say the Democrats are better at understanding the issues and concerns important to women, while only 35 percent say the Republicans are.

Also, 59 percent of female voters say McCain picked the first-term Alaska governor "out of political considerations," while only 20 percent say he chose her based on experience on qualifications. That's the reverse of how female voters regard Obama's choice of Joe Biden, the poll found.

Given a description of the biographies of Palin and Biden, 41 percent of those surveyed said they found Palin's story appealing, lower than the 64 percent for Biden's.

And told about her position on abortion -- she opposes it even in cases of rape and incest -- 56 percent said that gave them a less favorable view of Palin.

Palin has directly appealed to female voters, particularly those who supported Hillary Clinton over Obama in the Democratic primaries, by saying they had the chance with her to break the highest, hardest glass ceiling once and for all.

The poll of 800 female voters was conducted by Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group on Sunday and Monday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.