President Donald Trump's problem with women voters is getting worse

With seven months left until the November presidential election, most opinion polls show presumptive presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden to be essentially evenly matched, with both needs as many votes as possible to secure the keys to the White House.

But Trump, a former Republican president, may be hampering his chances of success because of his standing with women, a key segment of the adult electorate.

Polls show that fewer women plan to vote for Trump in November than they did in the 2020 election. On the other hand, experts said: newsweek Trump's views on abortion and recent lawsuits surrounding women will influence voters' behavior on Election Day.

newsweek Representatives for Mr. Trump were contacted via email for comment on this story.

According to a Pew Research Center analysis, Trump's share of the female vote in the 2020 election improved from 2016, rising from 39% to 44%, while Biden received 55% of the vote. .

However, a January poll of registered voters conducted by Quinnipiac University found that 58% of women support Mr. Biden and 36% support Mr. Trump. A December poll by the same pollster showed the difference was 53% to 41%, showing that Trump's support among women had declined.

April poll by new york times Siena College, known as the nation's most accurate pollster, also found that Biden had a 16-point lead over Trump among women, with 53% of the vote compared to 37% for Trump. .

Meanwhile, according to an exclusive poll, newsweekThe gender gap in American politics is widening, with men becoming increasingly conservative and women becoming more liberal.

With polls showing such a close race, any decline in Trump's support among women could cost him the presidential election.

talk to newsweekHeath Brown, an associate professor of public policy at the City University of New York, said the political gender gap “will widen in the future,” in part because of the abortion debate currently engulfing the United States.

In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the decision. Roe vs. Wade, a 1973 court decision that recognized a woman's right to medical abortion. Since then, many states have enacted near-total abortion bans.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled in April that the state must abide by an 1864 law that makes abortion punishable by two to five years in prison. The only exception is if the mother's life is in danger due to the pregnancy.

That same month, President Trump said he believed abortion restrictions should be left up to each state and said he was proud that abortion restrictions had been overturned. Roe V. Wade. His comments prompted a backlash from anti-abortion groups, and polls suggest abortion remains a difficult issue for Republicans.

“It's clear that the political gender gap is real and will widen in the future,” Brown said.

She added: “This is partly due to the emphasis on reproductive justice for women, an issue that differs most in importance between young men (42%) and young women (58%).” Ta.

“Abortion rights are the most important issue in this campaign right now and will likely continue into the November election.”

Mark Shanahan, an associate professor of political science at the University of Surrey, said Mr. Trump's “aggressive, macho, slightly whining style” has alienated female voters.

he said newsweek: “In 2016, there was a popular belief that Trump won more women's votes than Clinton, but that's not actually the case; about 42 percent of women voted for Trump. That number continued in 2020. “They were about the same, but the former president did somewhat better.”But Mr. Trump's aggressive, macho, slightly whiny style may be even more difficult to attract female voters outside this MAGA core this time around. It doesn't seem to be working well. ”

He added that Trump's stance on abortion and recent court cases against women are also contributing to his loss of support among this demographic.

In January, President Trump was ordered to pay $83.3 million in damages to journalist E. Jean Carroll for comments he made in 2019. She said he was lying about allegations that he sexually assaulted her in her dressing room at a Manhattan department store in the 1990s. Last year, she was ordered to pay him $5 million in damages in a separate civil libel case stemming from Carroll's 2022 denials of her claims. She said he has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing and that she will appeal the verdict.

A hush-money trial begins this week that will see President Donald Trump marry two women, former adult film star Stormy Daniels, to protect his interests before the 2016 election. It will be determined whether he falsified business records regarding payments made to two women in order to keep his alleged affair with Mr. McDougal a secret. motion.

President Trump has also been accused of sexual assault by more than a dozen women, which he denies. As heard on the infamous Access Hollywood tape, he once boasted about catching women “by the bastard.”

“He was able to reverse that by Roe vs. Wade, his rough-and-tumble alpha male characterization in the media and his recent court appearances in both the E. Jean Carroll and Stormy Daniels cases have been linked to younger, more centrist or minority women. It does little to gain support, and his old base of support at MAGA 2016 is disappearing. “Biden has associated himself with support for women's reproductive rights, and while he may not be the most liberal of the Democrats, he primarily supports women's progressive causes,” Shanahan said. Ta. It's no wonder he's far ahead of Trump in women's polls. ”

Thomas Whalen, an associate professor of American politics at Boston University, agreed that the abortion debate is influencing women's views of Trump.

“Trump always had a women's issue,” he said. Newsweek. “What has changed is that the Dobbs decision has made women's reproductive rights an even more important issue than before. Despite his best efforts to diffuse the issue, President Trump has made women's reproductive rights even more important than before. “We cannot escape from our past, where we have supported with all our might the forces that seek to deny the right to choose.”

“The great pitcher Satchel Page once advised: Don't look back, something may befall you. Well, in Trump's case, the abortion issue passed him by among women voters on November 5th. He's ready to be left in the political dust.''He has no one to blame but himself. ”