The latest IBD/TIPP tracking poll shows Donald Trump
capturing 39% of the female vote, the same share as Mitt Romney was getting in
2012. (AP)
Weeks of wall-to-wall media coverage of Donald Trump's
crude language and alleged misdeeds involving women don't seem to have hurt his
standing among female voters, the IBD/TIPP
presidential tracking poll shows.
That's not to say there isn't a gender gap — there's
still a big one. But Trump's support among women has improved 5 points in the
past three days in the wake of the FBI's stunning announcement that it is
looking into a fresh batch
of emails relating to Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while
secretary of state.
As of Tuesday, 39% of women said they're backing Trump,
compared with 34% who supported Trump in Saturday's tracking poll.
And as result, the thrice-married, acid-tongued Trump is
doing just as well among women as squeaky-clean Mitt Romney was doing at this
point in the Oct. 28, 2012, IBD/TIPP tracking poll, when Romney
also got 39% of the female vote. (Hurricane Sandy interrupted daily updates to
the tracking poll after that date.)
It's worth noting that the 2012 poll asked only about
Romney and Obama, while this year's results include Libertarian Gary Johnson
(who is getting 4% of the female vote) and Green Party candidate Jill Stein
(3%).
While Trump is polling worse than Romney among married
women — 46% vs 51% — he's doing better among single women — 28% to Romney's
23%.
On the other side of the gender gap, Trump gets 50% of
the male vote, the same share as Romney.
But Clinton is doing slightly worse
among men than Obama was at this point in the 2012 race — she captures just 38%
of men's votes, compared with Obama's 40%.
Meanwhile, Trump's supposed problem with Republicans and the
#NeverTrump crowd isn't showing up in the polls, either. While many
prominent GOPers have refused to support his candidacy — Ohio Gov. John Kasich
announced that he wrote in Sen. John McCain's name when he voted early — Trump
gets 88% support among likely Republican voters, the same as Romney. Four
percent of Republicans say they plan to vote for Clinton, which is also
identical to the share of Republicans who said they supported Obama in 2012.
What's more, Trump is doing slightly better with
independents than Romney — 48% support Trump vs. 46% who backed Romney.
Trump is also doing far better among working class voters
— 50% of whom back Trump vs 35% who supported Romney.
At the moment, Clinton is ahead of Trump by 0.9
percentage point, although this is down from 4 points just three days ago.
