For much of his campaign, Donald Trump has done more to repel voting women than he has to win them over. Now mounting evidence suggests they are already punishing him for it at the ballot box.

In three crucial battlegrounds — North Carolina, Florida and Georgia — women are casting early ballots in disproportionate numbers. And in North Carolina, a must-win state for Trump with detailed early voting data available, it’s clear that Democratic women have been particularly motivated to turn out or turn ballots in.


In North Carolina, 87,000 Democratic women have already moved to cast early ballots compared with just 60,000 Republican women, according to data shared with POLITICO by J. Michael Bitzer, an expert on North Carolina’s early vote at Catawba College. Men in the state, meanwhile, are closely divided: 50,000 Republicans and 52,000 Democrats have voted.

“That’s certainly an energy and mobilization indicator this early for the Clinton campaign and Democrats down ballot,” Bitzer said.

In Florida, Daniel Smith, an early-voting expert at the University of Florida, noted that about 55 percent of the 880,000 people who voted as of the end of the day Wednesday are women, even though women make up less than 53 percent of the state’s registered voters. And in Georgia, a new poll on Friday showed Clinton leading Trump by 5 percentage points among early voters — despite trailing Trump narrowly among likely voters — after a noticeable bump in early voting among women.

“I could see, the week following the first debate, the percentage of women requesting ballots increased in both North Carolina and Georgia,” said Michael McDonald, another early vote expert who runs the United States Elections Project.

It’s too early to tell whether early voting among women will eclipse the total in 2012, experts caution, and whether it will ultimately help Clinton.

North Carolina only began in-person early voting this week, a process that tends to benefit Democrats. But the number of women voting so far, especially Democratic women, is an early warning sign for Trump, evidence that the yawning gender gap in national polls and in these swing states is having tangible consequences.

Even more troubling for his prospects: experts noted a significant uptick in women voting early after the first debate, when Trump assailed Rosie O’Donnell, repeatedly interrupted Clinton and defended his 20-year-old digs at former Miss Universe Alicia Machado for gaining weight.

McDonald and Bitzer noted that early voting figures aren’t always predictive of the outcome. But Trump’s struggles with women increasingly appear to be a political millstone around his neck, as polls have long suggested.

“It was his behavior during the first debate,” said Stacey Abrams, minority leader of the Georgia House and a prominent Clinton surrogate in the state. “It was his post-debate tirades against Alicia Machado, and it was his dismissiveness of the critique about how he interrupted and displayed boorish behavior — fundamental disrespect toward Secretary Clinton.”

Randy Evans, a Republican National committeeman from Georgia, said he’s skeptical that the debate was truly a flashpoint in the race for Clinton. He said early vote numbers indicate a higher proportion of votes from rural areas than four years ago, with lighter numbers in urban areas, suggesting a potential tilt toward Trump.

“I’m not gonna pretend, with this electorate, to have the crystal ball,” he said, citing internal polls he’s seen giving Trump a 4- to 6-point edge. “The Trump folks felt really good about the absentee voting … Somebody’s going to be really right and somebody’s going to be really wrong. I have no idea because both sides are so confident in their respective positions.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

The Clinton campaign is working to press its early advantage among women as well. In Florida, where Clinton is clinging to a small lead in polls, her campaign has deployed Anne Holton, wife of Clinton's running mate, Tim Kaine; actresses Erika Alexander and Danai Gurira; Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) and TV personality Star Jones to persuade women to cast early ballots. Gurira has also campaigned for Clinton in Georgia.

Michelle Obama has also hit the campaign trail for Clinton, which Abrams suggested could be particularly potent in Georgia, where African-American women have historically turned out at higher rates than other demographic groups.

The first lady has campaigned for Clinton in North Carolina, a state where the Clinton campaign is particularly focused on running up the numbers with moderate suburban women who typically vote Republican, as well as on more traditional Democratic constituencies, including young women and women of color. Obama, considered one of Clinton’s most effective surrogates, has signed mailers urging voters to hit the polls early.

“One vote — your vote — can determine how history remembers Barack’s Presidency,” she wrote in one mailer obtained by POLITICO. “So please, join thousands of other voters in your community and stand up for Barack by voting early.”

On social media, the Clinton campaign has circulated video testimonials of women — including older white women, a demographic not always supportive of Democrats — talking about voting early, and there are plans in the works for other prominent women surrogates to underscore the importance of early voting. The campaign has also sent out mailers directly targeted at women. Clinton’s operation employs several hundred people in North Carolina to focus on voter contact, and encouraging women to vote early is a central goal.

On Friday, Clinton herself plugged early voting in Florida during an appearance on a Tampa radio station. After name-checking Michelle Obama, Clinton reminded listeners that many Florida counties begin early in-person voting on Monday. “We are seeing already high turnout across Florida because so many people understand it’s the most consequential election of our lifetimes,” she said.

Clinton has long held a massive advantage with women overall, polls show. But on the Friday following the first debate, McDonald said, he saw North Carolina absentee ballot requests spike among women. Over the next week, 59.4 percent of requests would come from women. Only about 55 percent of requests came from women in the week prior to the debate, he noted in a blog post. In Georgia, McDonald spotted a similar trend: 59.3 percent of requests came from women the week following the debate, up from under 57 percent the week preceding the debate.

“It was more of a bump than it was a permanent increase in absentee balloting activity by women,” he cautioned. But he also said that “I think at least partially, it’s interest and enthusiasm from these women.”

And that surge occurred before the release of a tape that caught Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women— a tape that caused 14 percent of North Carolina voters surveyed in a Suffolk University poll to change their view of Donald Trump.

The increase in Democratic women voting early in North Carolina reflects broader challenges for Republicans in the state so far. While Republicans typically do better in early voting by mail than Democrats do, their numbers in North Carolina in 2016 have consistently trailed their 2012 numbers, when Mitt Romney scored a narrow victory over Obama, while Democrats have outperformed their early vote-by-mail numbers they recorded four years ago.

“In North Carolina, we’ve persistently seen Republicans less engaged than they were in 2012,” McDonald said.

Dallas Woodhouse, the executive director of the North Carolina GOP, stressed that it was far too early to draw sweeping conclusions from the currently available vote data. In-person, early voting has just gotten underway, he noted, and vote-by-mail totals are a fraction of what the total vote will be, especially because Republicans have their best showing on Election Day. He also dismissed the idea that improved Democratic numbers meant a substantial addition to their total vote share.

“We have this constant vote shifting,” he said. “You have people who would have voted on Election Day that vote early. I think we’ve seen this time, especially on the Democrat side … a lot of people, especially Democrat women, who may have had their first voting experience voting early in person, are ... starting to take advantage of some of the other ways that people vote, including absentee by mail.”

“Republicans do need to pay attention this stuff, make sure we’re getting our people out to the polls,” he acknowledged, adding, “I’m comfortable with where we are right now. Ask me in 12 days.”

Jason Husser, a pollster at Elon University, noted that Democrats may have placed more emphasis on getting supporters to request absentee ballots this year to circumvent strict new voter ID laws in North Carolina, another change that could account for the uptick among women. He also noted that women with child care responsibilities are likelier to cast ballots early to avoid waiting in lines on Election Day. But he said enthusiasm levels among women seem tied to the events of the first debate.

“It’s not a good sign for Trump regardless,” he said.