WASHINGTON: Donald Trump is being poll-axed — by women. While hardcore supporters are still clinging to a few surveys showing him running Hillary Clinton close in the presidential election and occasionally even ahead in some battleground states, a variety of opinion polls now show he is en route to a rout.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, showed 44% of all voters want Trump to DROP OUT of the presidential race even at this late stage; that included nearly a fifth of registered Republicans.
His standing among women is particularly dire. Women, including Republicans, are deserting him in droves, unimpressed by his muscular talk and put off by his disrespect for women. Although his support among GOP women has always been modest (only around 70%, compared to the nearly 90% that Mitt Romney, John McCain and George Bush) got in previous elections, a combination of his misogynistic personality, disastrous campaign missteps, and a female opponent, is adding up to women ditching him in large numbers.
A poll by Franklin & Marshall College showed his standing with women perilously low in a battleground state like Pennsylvania. Only 27% of registered women voters back him, compared with 58% for Hillary Clinton. A Monmouth University poll showed Trump trailing Clinton by 30% among white women with college degree, irrespective of political affiliation. Even respected female Republican lawmakers are dumping him. Maine Senator Susan Collins is now among six Republican Senators who have given Trump a thumbs down.
On Tuesday, his remarks at a rally in North Carolina, seen as a crude instigation of violence to derail a possible Hillary Clinton presidency, brought out the fury in her female supporters. “@realDonaldTrump makes death threats because he’s a pathetic coward who can’t handle the fact that he’s losing to a girl,” tweeted Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Senator who has taken on Trump on social media on his terms, in his language.
Feminist groups erupted in anger. “If you thought Donald Trump couldn’t sink any lower you were wrong. His continued insistence that if the first woman president is elected it will be illegitimate, ‘rigged,’ and now worthy of ‘second amendment’ remedies is beyond the pale, but not surprising from a man whose life has been dedicated to denigrating women,” said Nita Chaudhry, co founder Ultraviolet, an online community that fights sexism in the public life.