2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumWAPost poll: NO GENDER GAP in Democratic support for Hillary! (Statistical tie, 89% men; 86% women)
Yay, Democrats -- men and women!
Of course there IS a significant gender gap in Republican support for Trump.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/22/hillary-clintons-new-ad-unsubtly-fires-at-donald-trumps-achilles-heel-temperament/
That's Trump's problem in a nutshell. People find his business experience attractive but worry about his willingness to fly off the handle. Wills, as a Republican woman, is a member of the group that's most responsible for Trump's current polling problems. Democratic men prefer Hillary Clinton over Trump by 89 points, according to the most recent Post/ABC poll. Democratic women prefer her by 86 points. Republican men prefer Trump by 82 points but Republican women prefer him by only 64 points.
Asked which candidate has a better personality and temperament to serve effectively as president, the gap is similar. Over 9 in 10 Democratic men and women say Clinton has the better temperament. But only 68 percent of Republican men pick Trump as do only 58 percent of Republican women.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)somewhere around 17-20% of Democrats are conservatives, who "always" vote for the Republican presidential president. Only apparently not so much this time. So far.
Cal33
(7,018 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)independent, not a large portion of the entire electorate at all.
There are a few dingdongs who have trouble deciding between cons and libs, but main body of the so-called indies normally vote consistently for "their" party. In fact, Pews found that in some respects they can even be more loyal to the party than registered members.
And "indies" are from all over the spectrum, including hard-cores. Only a minority are the "moderates" some have tended to assume. It's going to be interesting to see what they all do this time. Will being officially unaligned finally make a genuine difference?