By Jill Colvin and Jonathan J. Cooper, Associated Press

GASTONIA, N.C. (AP) — donald trump He says he will be the “protector” of women, whether they like it or not.

She has campaigned with men who use sexist and crude language. He has expressed alarm at the idea that wives might vote differently than their husbands.

And the former Republican president has suggested that Democrats Kamala Harristrying to become the first woman to win the White House, would feel “overwhelmed” and “melt” in front of authoritarian male leaders he considers tough.

In the final days of his campaign, Trump has stuck to a gender worldview that his critics consider outdated and paternalistic, even as he acknowledges that some of that language has gotten him “in so much trouble” with a crucial group of voters.

Trump and some of his most prominent allies they have sold absolute sexism.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, at an event with the Republican presidential candidate, compared Trump to an angry father providing tough love to a “bad girl” who, as Carlson put it, “needed a vigorous beating.”

Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point, which is playing a key role in the get-out-the-vote campaign operation, has said that any man who votes against Trump “he is not a man.” Kirk has also said that wives who surreptitiously vote for Harris “undermine their husbands,” describing a man “who probably works hard to make sure she can go and have a nice life and provide for the family.”

On Saturday night, Trump laughed and told a crude joke about Harris, nearly a week after a speaker at his rally at Madison Square Garden suggested that the vice president was like a prostitute controlled by “pimps.” As Trump repeated your claim, When it was discovered without evidence that Harris 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 a section of the crowd.

“This place is incredible,” he said to applause. “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 much more likely to say they support Harris than Trump, by double-digit margins in some polls.

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 a higher rate than men. In 2020, they made up 53% of the electorate, according to AP VoteCast. Among the nearly 67.2 million Americans who have already voted, about 53% are women, compared to 44% men, according to TargetSmart, a political data firm.

“This is not the time for you to get too masculine with this bromance you have,” he said. nikki haleywho competed with Trump for the Republican nomination this year, in a recent interview with Fox News. “Women will vote. They care how they speak to them. And they worry about problems.”

Trump has not campaigned with Haley, who was ambassador to the UN during his administration, despite her offers to appear with him.

Trump has been aggressively courting men. Trump’s team has spent months trying to reach younger men, in particular, with a interview series on popular male-centric podcasts and appearances at soccer games and mixed martial arts fights. His campaign has been dominated by machismo, evident for example when former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan tore off his shirt while taking 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” is often played at Trump events.

Trump was always expected to face challenges with women this year after nominate three of the judges of the Supreme Court who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending constitutionally guaranteed abortion rights and ushering in a wave of restrictions in Republican-led states.

But their efforts to win back women have often failed.

Speaking Saturday in Gastonia, North Carolina, at the first of nearly a dozen rallies over the final weekend of the race, Trump acknowledged the backlash he has received for saying that, as president, he would “protect” women. . However, he continued to repeat the phrase while insisting that women love him and that he was right.

“I think women have to be protected. Men have to be, children, everyone. But women have to be protected when they are at home, in the suburbs,” she said. “When you’re alone in your house and you have this monster who got out of prison and has, you know, six counts 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 “safety moms.” At his rallies, he has presented 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 murdered by two suspected Venezuelan gang members.

The campaign also believes that Trump Frequent denunciation of transgender rights dominates.

On Saturday in Salem, Virginia, Trump brought athletes on stage from Roanoke College, where a transgender woman had applied and then withdrawn her application to join the women’s swim 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 it, 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 to protect me and a man to protect me.”

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

Harris, meanwhile, has taken over about Trump’s comments, highlighting them in speeches and online.

The vice president has tried to address her own side of the gender gap, appearing on podcasts and conducting interviews particularly aimed at black men, a traditionally Democratic constituency where Trump appears to be making inroads. On Saturday she was asked in an interview with CNN if she thinks women will make a difference in these elections.

“I think all Americans are going to make a difference. And I intend to be a president for all Americans,” he said.