When the latest Quinnipiac poll asked respondents whether Donald Trump is mentally stable or not, the president didn’t fare especially well: only 48% of Americans said yes. But the gender breakdown pointed to an interesting result: while a narrow majority of men said they consider Trump mentally stable, 50% of women said the opposite.
The result was emblematic of the significant gender gap Republicans are confronting this year. Indeed, the same Quinnipiac poll showed the president with a weak 38% approval rating, but Trump fared even worse among women, with whom he has 34% support.
The new CNN poll, released yesterday, offered even more dramatic results.
“Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president?”
Men: 42% approve, 51% disapproveWomen: 29% approve, 65% disapprove
That’s not a typo.
Of course, the president isn’t literally on the ballot this year, but that doesn’t mean the news for congressional Republicans is much better. A recent Quinnipiac poll on the generic congressional ballot found women preferring Democratic candidates to GOP candidates by a whopping 25-point margin — far larger than in other recent midterm election cycles.
A FiveThirtyEight analysis published last month made the case that voters may very well see a “record breaking” gender gap this fall, exceeding the midterm results in 1994.
Of course, the midterms are still two months away — Election Day is exactly eight weeks from today — and we may yet see public attitudes shift between now and then. But that’s not necessarily good news for Republicans: if the Senate’s GOP majority votes to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, a conservative jurist who’s very likely to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the gender gap may yet get bigger.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."