Trump wants to close his gap with women, but he won’t change the way he talks about them

And the former Republican president has suggested that Democrat Kamala Harriswho is trying to become the first woman to win the White House would become “overwhelmed” and “collapse” in the face of male authoritarian leaders he sees as tough.

In the final days of his campaign, Trump has clung to a gendered worldview that his critics see as 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 promoted outright sexism.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, during an event with the Republican presidential candidate, compared Trump to an angry father giving tough love to a “naughty little girl” who, as Carlson put it, “needed a good spanking.”

On Saturday night, Trump laughed along with a crude joke about Harris, almost a week after one speaker at his rally at Madison Square Garden suggested that the vice president was some kind of prostitute controlled by “pimps.” As Trump reiterated his claim, made without evidence that Harris had lied about working at McDonalds in her youth, someone in the crowd shouted, “She worked on the corner.”

Trump laughed, looked around and pointed to part of the crowd.

“This place is great,” he said, cheering. “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 support Harris than Trump — by double-digit margins in some surveys.

That could be enough to be decisive in what both sides expect to be an extremely close race that ends on Tuesday.

Women generally vote more often than men. According to AP VoteCast, they made up 53 percent of the electorate in 2020. Among the nearly 67.2 million Americans who have already voted, about 53 percent are women, compared to 44 percent men, according to TargetSmart, a political data company.

“Now is not the time to get too manly with this bromance thing they have going on,” said Nikki Haleywho battled Trump for the GOP nomination this year, in a recent Fox News interview. “Women will vote. They care about how they are spoken to. And they care about the issues.”

Trump has not campaigned with Haley, who served as U.N. ambassador during his administration, despite her offers to appear with him.

Trump has aggressively courted men. Trump’s team has tried for months to reach mainly younger men with a series of interviews on popular male-oriented podcasts and appearances at football games and mixed martial arts fights. His campaign was dominated by machismo, evident, for example, when former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan took off his shirt as he took the stage at the Republican National Convention and later at the rally at Madison Square Garden.

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 appointment of three Supreme Court judges who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutionally guaranteed right to abortion and ushering in a wave of restrictions in Republican-led states.

Speaking Saturday in Gastonia, N.C., at his first of nearly a dozen rallies during the race’s final weekend, Trump acknowledged the backlash he received for saying he would “protect” women as president. Nevertheless, he kept repeating the phrase, insisting that women loved him and that he was right.

“I believe women should be protected. Men should be, children, everyone. But women must be protected where they are at home, in the suburbs,” he said. “If you’re home alone and you have a monster who broke out of prison and he has, you know, six murder charges against 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 told the stories of mothers whose children were killed by people in the country who are in the United States illegally. This includes Alexis Nungaray, whose 12-year-old daughter, Jocelyn, was killed by two suspected Venezuelan gangs. members.

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 that, 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 that someone is protecting me and that a man is protecting me.”

She said she couldn’t understand why women would support Harris, but thinks men are attracted to Trump because “he’s that alpha male.” And for me, I love the alpha male. I grew up with a father who was an alpha male.”