When it comes to the needs and wants of female voters, the best Donald Trump can do is shrug. At a campaign rally in North Carolina on Monday, the most openly misogynist presidential candidate in modern history explained the yawning gender gap among his supporters by saying, “I don’t know what is going on with the women here.”
A poll the Pew Research Center conducted in mid-June found Hillary Clinton leading Trump by 24 points among women and Trump leading Clinton by 6 points among men. Not to worry, Trump says—men are half the battle! “Fifty percent of our country is men, where I am doing very, very well, record-setting numbers, folks,” he said. As for the slightly larger proportion of the country that is not men? “The women, I don’t know what is going on with the women here. But I think, I think I’m doing well with the women.”
“Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know,” he qualified, summing up the gist of his presidential campaign.
This may point to a simple misunderstanding of statistics. “Everywhere we go, we have massive crowds like this, and so many women signs all over the place. Women for Trump,” he said on Monday. Women signs! If women didn’t support Donald Trump, why would they hold women signs? Trump has seen with his own eyes women holding women signs, and they far outnumber the men holding men signs.
Trump has used this women sign-based data-gathering strategy for some time. In June, when Bill O’Reilly asked whether he’d shape his message to appeal to more women, Trump demurred, “I think I’m doing great with women.” The proof: “Today I’m in Maine, we have a sold-out arena, the place is packed, and yesterday in Ohio and Pennsylvania and West Virginia, it’s packed with lines going outside. It’s incredible. And half of these people, I mean more than half, it seems, are women and have signs up: ‘Women for Trump’ and ‘We love you Donald,’ all this stuff.”
But the bulk of Trump’s personal polling data rests on the performance of his daughter. “Ivanka, she is doing well with the women,” he said. “She understands the real Donald.” The real Donald, according to Ivanka, apparently supports Clinton’s policies on equal pay, child care, and paid parental leave. Incidentally, Ivanka’s characterization of the real Donald runs exactly counter to Trump’s public record of support and behavior, his campaign thus far, and the very platform of the party he represents.
