Poll: Fewer women find voting for Trump attractive enough

Trump knows he’s losing women

Donald Trump openly recognizes that he’s in deep trouble with women voters. Not that it’s the fault of anything he has said or done.

“Polls [are] close, but can you believe I lost large numbers of women voters based on made up events THAT NEVER HAPPENED,” he tweeted Sunday. “Media rigging election!”

A CBS News Battleground Tracker poll of 14 states showed a big swing in Hillary Clinton’s favor over the past month — with 7 of 10 women feeling Trump does not respect them.

Clinton’s advantage among women in those states jumped to 15 points from 5 points. Her overall lead in the battlegrounds is 6 points.

Trump disputes allegations that began surfacing last week from women who say he forced himself on them.

But the wall between him and many female voters has been years in the making — his rep for misogyny comes from a long list of on-video, on-audio and on-Twitter comments. Here’s one compilation.

State of the race

Two major new national polls agree that Clinton is ahead, but disagree significantly by how much. It’s a 4-point lead, according to a Washington Post/ABC News survey. It’s 11 points for an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Even the tighter Post/ABC poll raises alarms for Trump — enthusiasm among his supporters has dropped from 91% last month to 79% now. His denials about making unwanted sexual advances are not believed by 68% of likely voters. But that hasn’t driven many of his backers away.

No joy in Clintonville

Even with polls looking good, there is plenty of anxiety at Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters heading into the campaign’s final three weeks over Trump’s ever-wilder tone and still-to-come hacked email dumps from WikiLeaks, Politico reports.

“The goal of this is to create dissension between everyone,” said Neera Tanden, a close Clinton ally.

The emails from campaign chairman John Podesta have been rife with unflattering comments on people in various Clinton orbits, such as a longtime fundraiser who is furious over how she was privately mocked.

Still, Republican political professionals unaffiliated with Trump told The Associated Press that only an epic collapse by Clinton would keep her from winning enough states to become president.

The take-away: GOP survival

Part of the Republican calculation in staying close or moving further away from their nominee is the potential impact of a Trump defeat on Congress, where the GOP holds a 246-186 majority in the House and 54 of 100 Senate seats.

They could take comfort from past examples of presidential nominees who got buried in landslides but did not take their party down with then, such as Democrat George McGovern in 1972. See Dan Janison’s column for Newsday.

Clinton's covert chats

In a $225,000 speech for Goldman Sachs in 2013, Clinton talked about her view of an American role in Syria, which in large part had already leaked out.  

“My view was you intervene as covertly as is possible for Americans to intervene,” she said but added, “We used to be much better at this than we are now.”

“Now, you know, everybody can’t help themselves,” and officials go out to “tell their friendly reporters and somebody else: ‘Look what we’re doing, and I want credit for it.’” 

Inside the Wikileaks trove of campaign emails, however, Clinton's presence is similar to that of a board chairman or a sitting president, as the Wall Street Journal describes it.

Wigging about rigging

Trump’s escalation of conspiracy-theorizing about plots to rig the election against him have stoked worries he will try to incite his followers if he loses.

Running mate Mike Pence tried to tamp that down on the Sunday shows, saying, “We will absolutely accept the results of the election.” The “sense of a rigged election,” he said, is just about “bias in the national media.”

But Trump on Twitter charged the election also was being rigged “at many polling places.” His surrogate Rudy Giuliani said Democrats could steal a close election with phony votes from “dead people” in “the inner cities.”

See Emily Ngo’s roundup from the Sunday shows for Newsday.

GOP office attacked in N.C.

A Republican headquarters in Orange County, North Carolina, was firebombed overnight Saturday, and graffiti saying “Nazi Republicans leave town or else” was painted on an adjacent building.

Police and federal agents were investigating and state GOP officials say they don’t know who was responsible. But Trump declared in a tweet that “animals representing Hillary Clinton and Dems” committed the crime.

More than an hour earlier, Clinton’s Twitter account called the attack “horrific and unacceptable,” and the North Carolina Republican Party replied with a thank you.

What else is happening

• Clinton strategists are debating internally whether to step up efforts in usually Republican-leaning states to run up the score and give her a stronger mandate, The Washington Post says. The risk is diverting resources from must-win states for an Electoral College majority.
• “Saturday Night Live’s” cold open lampooned Clinton and Trump’s performances in last week’s debate. (Video here.) Trump tweeted it was a “hit job on me. Time to retire the boring and unfunny show. Alec Baldwin portrayal stinks. Media rigging election!”
• Who has higher poll ratings than Clinton, Trump or President Barack Obama? Michelle Obama has a 59% positive and 25% negative rating, according to the NBC/Journal survey.
• Before the campaign, Clinton was the best-known of the candidates internationally, but Trump is getting more attention in the foreign press. See Emily Ngo’s story for Newsday.
• Clinton running mate Tim Kaine delivered a speech entirely in Spanish at a Miami church.
• Nearly 40% of Americans have experienced tension with friends or family over the presidential election, the ABC/Post poll found.