Trump’s Women Problem
If the celebrity businessman is nominated, a segment of Republican women could stay home, or even weigh casting a vote for Hillary Clinton.
The National Journal
March 9, 2016
Donald Trump gives Republicans plenty to be anxious about in a general election against Hillary Clinton, but none may be more worrisome than this: The potential Republican nominee is hugely unpopular among women.
If the Trump brand and his celebrity have helped him win attention and votes during the GOP primary, his business record and history of making degrading comments about women could sink him come November. Trump, who sponsored the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, appeared on the cover of Playboy, owned a stake in an Atlantic City casino that included a strip club, and had a well-publicized affair during his first marriage.
The trove of incendiary and offensive things Trump has said about women during his decades in public life is seemingly endless. He’s disparaged women for their looks, ranked which female public figures he’d sleep with on The Howard Stern Show, and once said in an interview with Esquire, “You know, it doesn’t really matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.” In 2011, Trump called a female attorney—a new mom—who took a break during a deposition to use a breast pump “disgusting.”
The consequences are evident in Republican primary exit polling and national opinion polls, including a February CNN/ORC poll that found just 29 percent of registered women voters had a favorable opinion of Trump, while a whopping 68 percent viewed him unfavorably.
By comparison, CNN’s final national poll before the November 2012 presidential election found women evenly split in their opinion of Mitt Romney: 47 percent of likely women voters viewed him favorably, and 49 percent viewed him unfavorably. Romney ultimately lost women by 10 points nationally to President Obama, and lost them by an even wider margin in a handful of swing states.
Standing at a lectern at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City last week, Romney called Trump a misogynist and questioned whether he has the temperament to be president. That’s nothing compared to what Democrats are preparing for their potential general-election foe.
Pro-Clinton groups like EMILY’s List and Correct the Record are already laying the groundwork to use Trump’s history of demeaning and disparaging comments against him. In press releases, EMILY’s List never misses an opportunity to mention Trump’s history of calling women “fat pigs,” “dogs,” “slobs,” and “bimbos.” Clinton ally David Brock predicted last weekend that a Trump-Clinton race would “produce the biggest gender gap in the history of modern American politics.”
“There would be nothing more motivating to Democratic women, and women in general, than having Donald Trump as the nominee on the Republican side, and that’s because his worldview toward women is just decades of misogynistic, hateful sentiments toward women,” EMILY’s List spokeswoman Marcy Stech said.
Given women’s tendency to favor Democrats in presidential contests, how Trump fares among Republican women will be even more telling of his divisiveness. So far, he has underperformed, including in crucial swing states. In Virginia on March 1, Trump lost women to Sen. Marco Rubio while winning men by 10 points, and he tied with Sen. Ted Cruz among women Tuesday in Michigan even as he won men by a 2-to-1 margin.
In a general election, Republican pollster Christine Matthews sees two potential scenarios dictating how some Republican women might vote.
“If polls have them close, I think Republican women of a certain type would be more likely to say, ‘I can’t just sit this out. I have to actually vote for Hillary Clinton to make sure Donald Trump isn’t elected,’” Matthews said. “If it looks like Hillary Clinton is pretty comfortably ahead of Donald Trump, I think the inclination would be to sit it out. It would be sort of like a desperate-measure vote.”
Still, she said, “In a lot of the research that we do, Hillary Clinton’s pretty unpopular among Republican women. They don’t trust her, they don’t like her, so it would not be a natural embrace.”
The women most likely to weigh such a step in a close contest, according to Matthews, would be suburban, college-educated women, or women with graduate degrees who already reside in bellwether districts home to swing voters, and who are terrified or embarrassed by the thought of Trump becoming president.
“I think you’re talking about a very, very, very small part of the electorate that might be willing to do that,” said Kelly Dittmar, an assistant professor of political science at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
Given the possibility that there could be some previously unseen crossover, Stech said, “This speaks to the fact that there is no conventional wisdom about the presidential race right now.”
Trump is also highly unappealing to socially conservative women—particularly women of faith, including evangelical women, who have supported conservative purists like Cruz or former Sen. Rick Santorum in the primaries. The twice-divorced Trump—who has bragged about his extramarital affairs and sexual exploits—is an odd fit for a party that has long heralded “family values.”
Trump also has previously identified as “pro-choice” and offered measured praise for Planned Parenthood. Ahead of the Iowa GOP caucuses, Iowa Right to Life and the socially conservative group Concerned Women for America issued a statement urging voters to pick “anyone but Donald Trump.” Penny Nance, the CWA president, said in an interview with The Daily Beast in January, “I think respect for women is very important,” and said she found elements of Trump’s business record “very disturbing.”
“Among some evangelical women, they really don’t like him. They think he’s very bad,” Matthews said. The difference is that it’s hard to picture evangelical women going the extra step to cast a ballot for Clinton, but Matthews said she thinks they could withhold their vote.
One way a Trump-Clinton matchup could flip the traditional partisan gender script is on issues of national security. Matthews said national security, including terrorism, ranks as the No. 1 concern of many Republican women voters—sometimes referred to as “security moms” in focus groups—but those same voters may not see much to like in Trump on that front.
“If it becomes, ‘Who’s going to keep us safe?’—that’s an interesting equation,” Matthews said. Though Trump offers tough talk on security issues, she said, voters could be drawn to Clinton’s experience as secretary of State.
Vice President Joe Biden jokingly thanked Trump recently for helping the country confront its own racism with his comments on immigrants, refugees, and former KKK leader David Duke. In a general election against Clinton, the same could be said of the country’s lingering sexism.
“I don’t know that it’s good for the country,” Dittmar said, “but for political observers it will be interesting if they’re running against each other, on a lot of gender dimensions and levels.”
Donald Trump gives Republicans plenty to be anxious about in a general election against Hillary Clinton, but none may be more worrisome than this: The potential Republican nominee is hugely unpopular among women.
If the Trump brand and his celebrity have helped him win attention and votes during the GOP primary, his business record and history of making degrading comments about women could sink him come November. Trump, who sponsored the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, appeared on the cover of Playboy, owned a stake in an Atlantic City casino that included a strip club, and had a well-publicized affair during his first marriage.
The trove of incendiary and offensive things Trump has said about women during his decades in public life is seemingly endless. He’s disparaged women for their looks, ranked which female public figures he’d sleep with on The Howard Stern Show, and once said in an interview with Esquire, “You know, it doesn’t really matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.” In 2011, Trump called a female attorney—a new mom—who took a break during a deposition to use a breast pump “disgusting.”
The consequences are evident in Republican primary exit polling and national opinion polls, including a February CNN/ORC poll that found just 29 percent of registered women voters had a favorable opinion of Trump, while a whopping 68 percent viewed him unfavorably.
By comparison, CNN’s final national poll before the November 2012 presidential election found women evenly split in their opinion of Mitt Romney: 47 percent of likely women voters viewed him favorably, and 49 percent viewed him unfavorably. Romney ultimately lost women by 10 points nationally to President Obama, and lost them by an even wider margin in a handful of swing states.
Standing at a lectern at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City last week, Romney called Trump a misogynist and questioned whether he has the temperament to be president. That’s nothing compared to what Democrats are preparing for their potential general-election foe.
Pro-Clinton groups like EMILY’s List and Correct the Record are already laying the groundwork to use Trump’s history of demeaning and disparaging comments against him. In press releases, EMILY’s List never misses an opportunity to mention Trump’s history of calling women “fat pigs,” “dogs,” “slobs,” and “bimbos.” Clinton ally David Brock predicted last weekend that a Trump-Clinton race would “produce the biggest gender gap in the history of modern American politics.”
“There would be nothing more motivating to Democratic women, and women in general, than having Donald Trump as the nominee on the Republican side, and that’s because his worldview toward women is just decades of misogynistic, hateful sentiments toward women,” EMILY’s List spokeswoman Marcy Stech said.
Given women’s tendency to favor Democrats in presidential contests, how Trump fares among Republican women will be even more telling of his divisiveness. So far, he has underperformed, including in crucial swing states. In Virginia on March 1, Trump lost women to Sen. Marco Rubio while winning men by 10 points, and he tied with Sen. Ted Cruz among women Tuesday in Michigan even as he won men by a 2-to-1 margin.
In a general election, Republican pollster Christine Matthews sees two potential scenarios dictating how some Republican women might vote.
“If polls have them close, I think Republican women of a certain type would be more likely to say, ‘I can’t just sit this out. I have to actually vote for Hillary Clinton to make sure Donald Trump isn’t elected,’” Matthews said. “If it looks like Hillary Clinton is pretty comfortably ahead of Donald Trump, I think the inclination would be to sit it out. It would be sort of like a desperate-measure vote.”
Still, she said, “In a lot of the research that we do, Hillary Clinton’s pretty unpopular among Republican women. They don’t trust her, they don’t like her, so it would not be a natural embrace.”
The women most likely to weigh such a step in a close contest, according to Matthews, would be suburban, college-educated women, or women with graduate degrees who already reside in bellwether districts home to swing voters, and who are terrified or embarrassed by the thought of Trump becoming president.
“I think you’re talking about a very, very, very small part of the electorate that might be willing to do that,” said Kelly Dittmar, an assistant professor of political science at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
Given the possibility that there could be some previously unseen crossover, Stech said, “This speaks to the fact that there is no conventional wisdom about the presidential race right now.”
Trump is also highly unappealing to socially conservative women—particularly women of faith, including evangelical women, who have supported conservative purists like Cruz or former Sen. Rick Santorum in the primaries. The twice-divorced Trump—who has bragged about his extramarital affairs and sexual exploits—is an odd fit for a party that has long heralded “family values.”
Trump also has previously identified as “pro-choice” and offered measured praise for Planned Parenthood. Ahead of the Iowa GOP caucuses, Iowa Right to Life and the socially conservative group Concerned Women for America issued a statement urging voters to pick “anyone but Donald Trump.” Penny Nance, the CWA president, said in an interview with The Daily Beast in January, “I think respect for women is very important,” and said she found elements of Trump’s business record “very disturbing.”
“Among some evangelical women, they really don’t like him. They think he’s very bad,” Matthews said. The difference is that it’s hard to picture evangelical women going the extra step to cast a ballot for Clinton, but Matthews said she thinks they could withhold their vote.
One way a Trump-Clinton matchup could flip the traditional partisan gender script is on issues of national security. Matthews said national security, including terrorism, ranks as the No. 1 concern of many Republican women voters—sometimes referred to as “security moms” in focus groups—but those same voters may not see much to like in Trump on that front.
“If it becomes, ‘Who’s going to keep us safe?’—that’s an interesting equation,” Matthews said. Though Trump offers tough talk on security issues, she said, voters could be drawn to Clinton’s experience as secretary of State.
Vice President Joe Biden jokingly thanked Trump recently for helping the country confront its own racism with his comments on immigrants, refugees, and former KKK leader David Duke. In a general election against Clinton, the same could be said of the country’s lingering sexism.
“I don’t know that it’s good for the country,” Dittmar said, “but for political observers it will be interesting if they’re running against each other, on a lot of gender dimensions and levels.”
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