Trump wants to narrow his deficit with women but he's not changing how he talks about them
UNB
Publish: 04 Nov 2024, 01:06 PM
GASTONIA,
N.C. Nov 4 (AP/UNB)- Donald Trump says he will be the "protector" of
women, whether they like it or not.
He's campaigned with men
who use sexist and crude language. He's expressed alarm at the idea that wives
might vote differently from their husbands.
And the former
Republican president has suggested that Democrat Kamala Harris, who is trying
to become the first woman to win the White House, would get
"overwhelmed" and "melt down" facing male authoritarian
leaders he considers tough.
In the final days of his
campaign, Trump has stuck to a gendered worldview that his critics consider
dated and paternalistic, even as he acknowledges that some of that language has
gotten him "into so much trouble" with a crucial group of voters.
Trump and some of his
most prominent allies have peddled outright sexism.
Former Fox News host
Tucker Carlson, at an event with the Republican presidential nominee, likened
Trump to an angry father providing tough love to a "bad little girl"
who, as Carlson put it, was "in need of a vigorous spanking."
Charlie Kirk, founder of
the conservative youth organization Turning Point, which is playing a key role
in the campaign's get-out-the-vote operation, has said that any man who votes
against Trump is "not a man." Kirk also has said wives who covertly
vote for Harris "undermine their husbands" - describing a man
"who probably works his tail off to make sure that she can go and have a
nice life and provide to the family."
On Saturday night, Trump
laughed along with a crude joke about Harris, nearly a week after a speaker at
his Madison Square Garden rally suggested the vice president was like a
prostitute controlled by "pimp handlers." As Trump repeated his
claim, made without evidence, that Harris lied about working at McDonalds in
her youth, someone in the crowd yelled, "She worked on the corner."
Trump laughed, looked
around and pointed toward a section of the crowd.
"This place is
amazing," he said to cheers. "Just remember, it's other people saying
it. It's not me."
Trump has faced a
persistent gender gap since Harris entered the race in July. Women are far more
likely to say they're supporting Harris than Trump - by a double-digit margin
in some surveys.
That could be enough to
prove decisive in what both sides expect to be an extremely close race that
ends Tuesday.
Women generally vote at
higher rates than men. In 2020, they made up 53% of the electorate, according
to AP VoteCast. Among the nearly 67.2 million Americans who have already voted,
about 53% are women, versus 44% men, according to TargetSmart, a political data
firm.
"This is not a time
for them to get overly masculine with this bromance thing that they've got
going," said Nikki Haley, who competed with Trump for the GOP nomination
this year, in a recent Fox News interview. "Women will vote. They care
about how they're being talked to. And they care about the issues."
Trump has not campaigned
with Haley, who was U.N. ambassador during his administration, despite her
offers to appear with him.
Trump has been
aggressively courting men. Trump's team has spent months trying to reach
younger men, in particular, with a series of interviews on popular male-centric
podcasts and appearances at football games and mixed martial arts fights. His
campaign has been dominated by machismo, evident for example when former pro
wrestler Hulk Hogan ripped off his shirt as he took the stage at the Republican
National Convention and later at the Madison Square Garden rally.
The song "It's A
Man's Man's Man's World" often plays at Trump's events.
Trump was always
expected to face challenges with women this year after nominating three of the
Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the
constitutionally guaranteed right to abortion and ushering in a wave of
restrictions across Republican-led states.
But his efforts to win
women back have often landed flat.
Speaking Saturday in
Gastonia, North Carolina, at his first of nearly a dozen rallies during the
race's final weekend, Trump acknowledged the blowback he has received for
saying that, as president, he would "protect" women. He continued,
nonetheless, to repeat the line as he insisted women love him and that he was
right.
"I believe that
women have to be protected. Men have to be, children, everybody. But women have
to be protected where they're at home in suburbia," he said. "When you're
home in your house alone and you have this monster that got out of prison and
he's got, you know, six charges of murdering six different people, I think
you'd rather have Trump."
Trump's campaign
believes his focus on crime and illegal immigration will help him win over
"security moms." At his rallies, he has featured the stories of
mothers whose children were killed by people in the country who are in the
United States illegally. That includes Alexis Nungaray, whose 12-year-old
daughter, Jocelyn, was killed by two suspected Venezuelan gang members.
The campaign also
believes that Trump's frequent denunciation of transgender rights holds sway.
In Salem, Virginia, on
Saturday, Trump brought to the stage female athletes from Roanoke College,
where a transgender woman had asked and then withdrew her request to join the
women's swimming team.
In a statement, Trump
campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt defended Trump's approach. "Women
deserve a President who will secure our nation's borders, remove violent
criminals from our neighborhoods, and build an economy that helps our families
thrive - and that's exactly what President Trump will do," she said.
Several attendees at his
rallies said they welcome Trump's promise to be a "protector."
"I want protection.
I mean, we all do, right? We don't want to feel like we're not protected,"
said Kim Saunders, 52, a small-business owner who lives in Williamsburg,
Virginia. "It's that scary feeling. So for me, it makes me feel really
good to have someone protect me and a man protect me."
She said she could not
understand why women would support Harris, but thinks men are drawn to Trump
because "he is that alpha male. And for me, I love the alpha male. I grew
up with a dad that was an alpha male."
Harris, meanwhile, has
seized on Trump's remarks, highlighting them in speeches and online.
The vice president has
tried to address her own side of the gender gap, appearing on podcasts and
doing interviews particularly geared toward Black men, a traditionally
Democratic constituency where Trump appears to be making inroads. She was asked
in an interview with CNN on Saturday whether she believes women will make the
difference in this election.
"I believe all
Americans are going to make the difference. And I intend to be a president for
all Americans," she said.
Trump has pushed back on
a suggestion by top Harris surrogate Mark Cuban that Trump does not surround
himself with strong, intelligent women. Trump notes that he hired women to lead
his 2016 and 2024 campaigns.
But as he has tried to
undercut Harris, who is the first woman to be elected vice president, Trump has
repeatedly turned to gendered language.
"She certainly can't
handle (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, President Xi of China. She will get
overwhelmed, melt down and millions of people will die," he said Saturday.
On Saturday night, he
repeated his claim that he is the "father of fertilization,"
awkwardly and falsely taking credit for a fertility procedure that was briefly
outlawed in Alabama by a state Supreme Court ruling due to the overturning of
Roe.
And at recent rallies,
Trump, who was found liable for sexual abuse and has been accused by more than
two dozen women of sexual misconduct, has noted female supporters in the
audience and mused about how he cannot call them beautiful anymore.
"You have to be
very careful. Everything you say. You know, like there's some women that are
very beautiful in the audience. I would never say that," Trump said.
"If I said they were beautiful, that's the end of my political
career."
End/UNB/AP/SU