Trump wants to narrow his deficit with women but he's not changing how he talks about them
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.”
Supporters react to Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump as he wraps up a campaign rally at First Horizon Coliseum, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, in Greensboro, NC. (Alex Brandon/AP Photo)
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 per cent of the electorate, according to AP VoteCast. Among the nearly 67.2 million Americans who have already voted, about 53 per cent are women, versus 44 per cent 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 UN ambassador during his administration, despite her offers to appear with him.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump gestures to supporters at a campaign rally at Greensboro Coliseum, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Greensboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
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, N.C., 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.”
Former U.S. president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are pictured in this combination file photo. (AP)
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.”
Cooper reported from Phoenix
IN DEPTH
Jagmeet Singh pulls NDP out of deal with Trudeau Liberals, takes aim at Poilievre Conservatives
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has pulled his party out of the supply-and-confidence agreement that had been helping keep Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's minority Liberals in power.
'Not the result we wanted': Trudeau responds after surprise Conservative byelection win in Liberal stronghold
Conservative candidate Don Stewart winning the closely-watched Toronto-St. Paul's federal byelection, and delivering a stunning upset to Justin Trudeau's candidate Leslie Church in the long-time Liberal riding, has sent political shockwaves through both parties.
'We will go with the majority': Liberals slammed by opposition over proposal to delay next election
The federal Liberal government learned Friday it might have to retreat on a proposal within its electoral reform legislation to delay the next vote by one week, after all opposition parties came out to say they can't support it.
Budget 2024 prioritizes housing while taxing highest earners, deficit projected at $39.8B
In an effort to level the playing field for young people, in the 2024 federal budget, the government is targeting Canada's highest earners with new taxes in order to help offset billions in new spending to enhance the country's housing supply and social supports.
'One of the greatest': Former prime minister Brian Mulroney commemorated at state funeral
Prominent Canadians, political leaders, and family members remembered former prime minister and Progressive Conservative titan Brian Mulroney as an ambitious and compassionate nation-builder at his state funeral on Saturday.
Opinion
opinion Don Martin: Gusher of Liberal spending won't put out the fire in this dumpster
A Hail Mary rehash of the greatest hits from the Trudeau government’s three-week travelling pony-show, the 2024 federal budget takes aim at reversing the party’s popularity plunge in the under-40 set, writes political columnist Don Martin. But will it work before the next election?
opinion Don Martin: The doctor Trudeau dumped has a prescription for better health care
Political columnist Don Martin sat down with former federal health minister Jane Philpott, who's on a crusade to help fix Canada's broken health care system, and who declined to take any shots at the prime minister who dumped her from caucus.
opinion Don Martin: Trudeau's seeking shelter from the housing storm he helped create
While Justin Trudeau's recent housing announcements are generally drawing praise from experts, political columnist Don Martin argues there shouldn’t be any standing ovations for a prime minister who helped caused the problem in the first place.
opinion Don Martin: Poilievre has the field to himself as he races across the country to big crowds
It came to pass on Thursday evening that the confidentially predictable failure of the Official Opposition non-confidence motion went down with 204 Liberal, BQ and NDP nays to 116 Conservative yeas. But forcing Canada into a federal election campaign was never the point.
opinion Don Martin: How a beer break may have doomed the carbon tax hike
When the Liberal government chopped a planned beer excise tax hike to two per cent from 4.5 per cent and froze future increases until after the next election, says political columnist Don Martin, it almost guaranteed a similar carbon tax move in the offing.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING Donald Trump picks former U.S. congressman Pete Hoekstra as ambassador to Canada
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has nominated former diplomat and U.S. congressman Pete Hoekstra to be the American ambassador to Canada.
Genetic evidence backs up COVID-19 origin theory that pandemic started in seafood market
A group of researchers say they have more evidence to suggest the COVID-19 pandemic started in a Chinese seafood market where it spread from infected animals to humans. The evidence is laid out in a recent study published in Cell, a scientific journal, nearly five years after the first known COVID-19 outbreak.
This is how much money you need to make to buy a house in Canada's largest cities
The average salary needed to buy a home keeps inching down in cities across Canada, according to the latest data.
'My two daughters were sleeping': London Ont. family in shock after their home riddled with gunfire
A London father and son they’re shocked and confused after their home was riddled with bullets while young children were sleeping inside.
Smuggler arrested with 300 tarantulas strapped to his body
Police in Peru have arrested a man caught trying to leave the country with 320 tarantulas, 110 centipedes and nine bullet ants strapped to his body.
Boissonnault out of cabinet to 'focus on clearing the allegations,' Trudeau announces
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced embattled minister Randy Boissonnault is out of cabinet.
Baby dies after being reported missing in midtown Toronto: police
A four-month-old baby is dead after what Toronto police are calling a “suspicious incident” at a Toronto Community Housing building in the city’s midtown area on Wednesday afternoon.
Sask. woman who refused to provide breath sample did not break the law, court finds
A Saskatchewan woman who refused to provide a breath sample after being stopped by police in Regina did not break the law – as the officer's request was deemed not lawful given the circumstances.
Parole board reverses decision and will allow families of Paul Bernardo's victims to attend upcoming parole hearing in person
The families of the victims of Paul Bernardo will be allowed to attend the serial killer’s upcoming parole hearing in person, the Parole Board of Canada (PBC) says.
Local Spotlight
B.C. man reunites with Nova Scotia stranger, 56 years after being saved from drowning
After driving near the water that winter day, Brian Lavery thought he saw a dog splashing in the waves – then realized it was way too cold for that.
'It's nice to just talk to people': Toronto podcaster prank calling Nova Scotians
Toronto radio and podcast host Jax Irwin has recently gone viral for videos of her cute -- and at times confusing -- phone conversations.
'I'm just tickled pink': Childhood friends from New Brunswick named Rhodes Scholars
Two young women from New Brunswick have won one of the most prestigious and sought-after academic honours in the world.
B.C. man to cycle length of New Zealand to raise funds for Movember
Stretching 3,000 kilometres from the tip of New Zealand to its southernmost point, with just a bicycle for transport and a tent to call home, bikepacking event Tour Aotearoa is not for the faint of heart.
'She's a people person': Urban chicken inspires positivity in B.C. neighbourhood
When he first moved to his urban neighbourhood, Barry Devonald was surprised to be welcomed by a whole flock of new neighbours.
'A little piece of history': Winnipeg homeowner finds 80-year-old letters hidden in walls
When George Arcioni began renovating his kitchen last summer, he didn’t expect to find a stack of letters hidden in the wall behind his oven.
Love story: Nova Scotia couple gets engaged at Taylor Swift’s Toronto show
A Nova Scotia couple fulfilled their wildest dreams Thursday night when they got engaged at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in Toronto.
WATCH 'Fireball' meteor lights up Calgary's sky
Some Calgary residents caught what appeared to be a meteor streaking across the sky early on Wednesday morning.
'I get in this workshop and everything disappears': N.B. man creates whimsical birdhouses in spare time
Four years ago, Phill Hebb started up 'Phil’s Unique Birdhouses' and since then, they’ve made their way all across Canada and into the United States.