It’s clear from his recent speeches and social media posts that Donald Trump is deeply concerned about his unpopularity with women—and rightly so. The gender gap is Trump’s weak point as a candidate, a problem he is completely unequipped to solve.

An NBC poll released Sunday provided further evidence that Kamala Harris has a solid (though not insurmountable) lead in the national vote, and also showed that the gender gap is the key battleground in this election. The overall results show Harris ahead of Trump, 49 percent to 44 percent. The more interesting results came in the crosstabs. Among women, Harris led 58 percent to 37 percent—a net difference of 21 percentage points. For comparison, in 2016, the last time Trump faced a female rival, Hillary Clinton led among women 54 percent to 39 percent, a net difference of 15 points. Among men, Trump leads 52 percent to 40 percent, up 12 points, according to the NBC poll. This is a slight improvement from Trump’s position in the 2016 results, where Trump led Hillary Clinton 52 percent to 41 percent, an 11-point difference. In other words, compared to 2016, Trump is doing significantly worse among women and slightly better among men.

A CBS analysis of another poll found a similarly widening gender gap. As CBS reported, “women in the latest Suffolk University/USA Today national poll favor Democrats by 21 percentage points, nearly double the largest gap ever left by Bill Clinton ahead of Bob Dole in 1996.”

It is hardly surprising that the gender gap is widening. As in 2016, the prospect of a female president polarizes men and women into different camps. Significantly, the gender gap narrowed significantly in 2020, when Trump and Biden were virtually tied among men and Biden was only 10 percentage points ahead of Trump among women (54 percent to 54 percent). In 2016, Clinton made her pioneering role as a potential first female president a big part of her campaign, talking about breaking the glass ceiling to the tune of Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song.” Harris has avoided that kind of rhetoric, in part out of fear that she might alienate swing voters, as she arguably did in 2016. More importantly, this election is coming after the Dobbs Decision overturned Roe v. Wadetherefore, abortion is a life-or-death issue that appeals much more strongly to ordinary women than the glass ceiling in the White House. Another factor Harris brought up in her debate with Trump is that a court found him guilty of raping and defaming E. Jean Carroll last year.

Hoping to address his gender deficit, Donald Trump addressed American women on Friday with a long, all-caps post on Truth Social:

WOMEN ARE POORER THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE LESS HEALTHY THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE LESS SAFE ON THE STREETS THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE MORE DEPRESSED AND UNHAPPY THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, AND ARE LESS OPTIMISTIC AND CONFIDENT ABOUT THE FUTURE THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO! I WILL FIX ALL OF THIS, AND IN TIME, AND THIS NATIONAL NIGHTMARE WILL FINALLY BE OVER. WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE! THEY WILL NOT THINK ABOUT ABORTION ANYMORE BECAUSE IT IS NOW WHERE IT ALWAYS NEEDED TO BE, WITH THE STATES AND A VOICE OF THE PEOPLE – AND WITH POWERFUL EXCEPTIONS LIKE THOSE RONALD REAGAN INSISTED ON ADMINISTRATION, INCEST, AND THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER – BUT NO LATE-TERM ABORTION AT THE 7TH, 8TH, OR 9TH MONTH AS DEMOCRATS DEMAND, OR EVEN THE EXECUTION OF A BABY AFTER BIRTH. I WILL PROTECT WOMEN ON A LEVEL NEVER SEEN BEFORE. THEY WILL FINALLY BE HEALTHY, HOPEFUL, SAFE, AND PROTECTED. YOUR LIFE WILL BE HAPPY, BEAUTIFUL AND GREAT AGAIN!

It’s tempting to dismiss this as typical Trumpian, mumbo jumbo. After all, the argument that “you won’t think about abortion anymore” because it’s in the hands of the states is patently absurd. It’s precisely because so many states have passed punitive anti-abortion laws that the issue has become so controversial. Moreover, his lie that babies are killed “after birth” has been repeatedly debunked.

Furthermore, the entire tone of the post is completely wrong: the capital letters make it sound like the shouting of a thug and the words themselves are condescending and derogatory.

Nevertheless, Trump repeated the words of the post at a rally in North Carolina on Saturday. In other words, the post was not an isolated incident, but a well-considered part of Trump’s campaign rhetoric.

To prove he has nothing but contempt for women, Trump complained in a Truth Social post on Saturday that a television show “featured MSDNC’s ‘dumb as a rock’ bimbo Stephanie Ruhle.” In another post, he complained about Oprah Winfrey’s support of Harris. Another attack on a prominent Harris supporter was simply, “I hate Taylor Swift.”

It’s not surprising that Trump is so openly disdainful and bitter about the gender gap. He has been a lifelong misogynist whose sexism has served him well: His insults of Hillary Clinton helped mobilize the right in 2016. Trump’s goal is clearly not to narrow the gender gap with women, but to widen it with men, which would actually improve his position in the polls. But 2024 is unlikely to go as well for Trump as 2016. The improvement he makes with men is only marginal compared to 2016, while his deficit with women is historically unprecedented. If that gender gap remains this stark, Trump will suffer defeat.