Obama won most of the women’s vote share in Iowa and also won the state. In New Hampshire, he lost both.
With new contests approaching in his tight race with Hillary Rodham Clinton, both candidates are focusing on winning over female voters, with the latest national polls showing Clinton with the lead. The two candidates’ approaches to gaining the support of women are similar — showing that they are listening to their concerns, particularly about the kitchen table economic issues that hit women disproportionately.

Which is why Obama found himself in a suburban Los Angeles back yard on Wednesday sitting around a round table in white resin chairs with homeowner Mimi Vitello talking about her mortgage woes. Vitello, a nurse who is taking college courses at night, bought her home with an adjustable interest-only loan, and she’s afraid she will lose the house with her mortgage payments on the rise.

Throughout the session, Obama made several references to the particular challenges women and minorities face in receiving mortgages or loans.

Obama said recently that his strategy to win women back is to make sure “they know what I have a track record of, what I’ve done on critical issues that are important to women. Not just equal rights and equal pay, not just things like childcare and daycare, and early childhood education, but opportunity that is in many ways disproportionate.”