Could women hold the key to the 2020 election?

Working class women voted for Mr Trump in large numbers in the 2016 election, but recent surveys show their support for him is crumbling

Morley Winograd told The Independent the increase in women moving away from Mr Trump was 'very visible among suburban and college-educated women' in the midterms back in 2018 and is continuing to happen (AP)

Donald Trump’s rapidly waning support among women throughout the course of his presidency could prove decisive when voters go to the polls in November.

Working class women voted for Mr Trump in large numbers in the 2016 election, but recent surveys show their support for the incumbent president – who has a record of making demeaning comments about women – is crumbling due to his antagonistic presidential approach and response to the coronavirus emergency.

A recent ABC/Washington Post poll found support for Mr Trump is 71 per cent among men who did not go to university – the same proportion as it was four years ago – but his backing among women who did not go to university has plummeted by 11 percentage points, dropping from 61 per cent to 50 per cent.

To put this into context, Hillary Clinton lost this group to Mr Trump by 27 points back in 2016, whereas Joe Biden is behind the current president by just six points.

The importance of the female vote is not lost on the Trump campaign. High-profile speakers at the Republican convention, such as Kellyanne Conway applauded Mr Trump for being a longstanding champion of women, while Karen Pence celebrated women’s suffrage, in their speeches.

Morley Winograd, a senior fellow at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School Center on Communication Leadership and Policy, told The Independent the increase in women moving away from Mr Trump was “very visible among suburban and college-educated women” in the midterms back in 2018 and has continued to be visible since then.

He said: “Since Trump’s election and Hilary Clinton’s surprising defeat, women have become more active in political campaigns. Starting with the Women’s March after Trump’s inauguration. The so-called gender gap among voters has continued to grow wider and wider since then.

“Women’s reaction is a visceral response to the tone and nature of the president and his misogynistic behaviour. He stopped the first female presidential candidate. It is about the way he behaves. That is the important part of non-college educated white women’s drift away from Trump. These are women who are culturally Republicans and have strong ties to the Republican Party.

“But they are making a distinction between the Republican Party and Trump. They are not necessarily voting for Biden. Some of them are moving to Biden and some of them are simply not voting at all. Their reaction is more about Trump’s confrontational behaviour and his attacks on successful women in American politics. Misogyny comes through in his behaviour and it is costing him votes and that makes the race more difficult for him to win.”

Mr Winograd said there are concerns among all voters, but particularly the female electorate, around the coronavirus crisis and police reform and racial justice.

A gender gap in voting preferences started to surface back in 1980 when it became clear women were far more inclined to vote Democrat while their male counterparts were more likely to vote Republican.

It is important to note that women tend to turn out to vote in higher numbers than men. Some 63 per cent of women who could vote said they did so in the presidential election back in 2016, in comparison to 59 per cent of men. There were equivalent four percentage point gender gaps in 2012 and 2008 after three-point gulfs in 2004, 2000 and 1996.