What do women want?

Another four years of President Obama, according to a new YWCA-sponsored poll that found him leading Republican Mitt Romney by 49 percent to 31 percent. The yawning gender gap mirrors other surveys nationwide and here in Ohio, a hotly contested swing state, and it represents one of Romney’s most pressing challenges in the home stretch before the Nov. 6 election.

Women typically favor the Democratic nominee, but the gender gap popping up in recent polls is larger than expected.  

“Women think President Obama is more in touch with their concerns,’’ said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who supervised the YWCA survey with Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway. “They also prefer to see a partnership between the private sector and government, and Obama speaks to that more.”

The president and his allies also have waged one of the most aggressive advertising campaigns on women’s issues seen in a presidential race, asserting that Romney will take away abortion rights, access to contraception and Planned Parenthood funding. In one new ad, a woman says the health clinic saved her life with an early diagnosis of cancer. Romney “just does not have any idea how many lives he’s devastating,” she says.