In recent decades, the “gender gap” has become one of the defining and enduring characteristics of American elections, with women more likely to support Democrats and men more likely to support Republicans. In the 2012 election, for example, President Obama earned 55% support from women voters, while Mitt Romney received 52% of men voters.Over the last quarter-century, men have only supported the Democratic candidate twice, while women haven’t supported the Republican candidate at all.This year, of course, it’s likely the gap will reach new and unprecedented extremes, with Donald Trump alienating women so dramatically, at times it seems he’s trying to lose. With that in mind, FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver published an interesting item yesterday, noting what the electoral map would look like if only women voted. In short, it’d a landslide: Hillary Clinton would win with 458 electoral votes. Naturally, the inverse is also true: Nate also posted a comparable electoral map showing that Trump would win with 350 electoral votes if only men voted.As BuzzFeed noted, the twist came this morning when Eric Trump sent an email to his father’s supporters, asking for money, and featuring the male-only map as proof of Donald Trump’s “momentum.”
“As one of the most dedicated grassroots leaders in the country you know, momentum matters,” the email, sent on behalf of the Trump campaign, reads. “And right now all the momentum is on our side.”Trump called on supporters to donate money to help fund aggressive ad blitzes and “get-out-and-vote operations.”
Eric Trump said prospective donors could see for themselves the Republican campaign’s “huge gains” by looking at the featured map — neglecting to mention that the image shows the American electoral excluding women entirely.It’s not just the fact that Team Trump is lying; it’s how Team Trump is lying that’s extraordinary.Postscript: The L.A. Times added this afternoon, “As polls show that Donald Trump would overwhelmingly win if only men were allowed to vote, the GOP nominee’s supporters have spawned a new Twitter hashtag: #repealthe19th.”The 19th Amendment to the Constitution is the one that gave women the right to vote.
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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."