In 2020, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was the beneficiary of a massive gender gap that propelled him to the White House. According to exit polls, Donald Trump won men by 8 percentage points (53% to Biden’s 45%) but lost women by 15 points (42% to Biden’s 57%)—a huge 23-point gender gap.
That was before Trump’s largely handpicked Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the constitutional right to abortion, and before the Democratic Party nominated a dynamic woman candidate to face a tired, grumpy Trump in 2024. The result: The latest Quinnipiac University poll has Vice President Kamala Harris winning women by 21 points (58% to Trump’s 37%), and Trump winning men by 18 points (57% to Harris’ 39%)—a yawning 39-point gender gap.
That gap is on the larger side among recent polls, though. Emerson College’s recent swing-state polls show the difference in most states hovering around 20-25 points (much like it did in 2020), but pollsters might struggle to account for the recent massive increase in voter registration among women.
There is a tsunami brewing among women voters. So what’s Trump doing about it? Making things worse for himself.
Let us count the ways that the Trump campaign and conservatives have wooed women in the past two days.
This Washington Post headline from Thursday kind of says it all: “Vance tells Harris to ‘go to hell’ for cemetery criticism she didn’t give.” Yes, telling successful, powerful women to go to hell is always a winner. Ladies love it when men attack them with that kind of language. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, already dug the ticket into a hole thanks to his bizarre obsession with a woman’s breeding status. You’d think he would be trying to mitigate that damage.
Then there’s this from Mediaite also on Thursday: “‘Beyond Disgusting’: Radio Host Slammed For Calling Kamala Harris Power Hungry ‘Since The Moment She Got Up Off Her Knees’”
Erick Erickson, the conservative radio host in question, is not a huge Trump fan. He is also self-righteously pious, but his supposed religiosity didn’t prevent him from saying something vile about our country’s first woman vice president.
“Kamala Harris has done nothing but climb the ladder of power since the moment she got up off her knees in front of Willie Brown,” Erickson spewed. Attacking Harris’ short-lived relationship with the former San Francisco mayor is a common refrain in current right-wing discourse as frustration mounts with conservatives’ inability to land any real blows on her soaring campaign.
Which voters are these Trump surrogates trying to sway with these kind of crass and sexist attacks? Yet, instead of backing off, they’re getting positive reinforcement from none other than Trump himself.
On Truth Social, one noxious user posted an image containing a photo of Hillary Clinton and Harris as well as the comment “Funny how blowjobs impacted their careers differently…” Trump then shared the post with his followers on the site. And on Wednesday, CNN anchor Pamela Brown said it made her “stomach feel sick.” Moves like that amplify Trump’s sick, debased behavior in ways that, once again, won’t be helping him win votes.
This also happened:
They can’t help themselves, can they?
And then there’s this week’s Arlington National Cemetery disgrace, where Trump and his team staged a campaign photo op in violation of federal law. And when a female cemetery official tried to stop them, she was literally shoved aside.
“An ANC employee who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside,” the U.S. Army said in a statement. Unfortunately, she is too terrified of Trump’s goons to press charges.
But it all adds up politically. Trump is struggling to win a key demographic, but he can’t escape his own misogynistic impulses, nor the sexism at the root of his base. And the more momentum Harris builds, the uglier those attacks will be, perpetuating a vicious cycle that will serve Trump poorly through Election Day.
