Fortunately for him, his favorability numbers in the spring looked pretty good. In May 2012, 87 percent of Republicans had favorable opinions of him and so did 48 percent of independent voters. His approval ratings with women were not stellar, but they had jumped from 33 to 41 percent since September 2011 and had the potential to rise from there.

“Romney certainly didn’t create the gender gap, but the heir apparent will inherit what is no doubt a challenge,” Tracey Schmidt, a former Republican National Committee spokeswoman, told the Washington Post in April 2012. “The general election will provide the campaign an opportunity to address the divide.”

That opportunity came and went.

On Oct. 16, 2012, during the third presidential debate, Romney told a town hall member – who asked a question about workplace inequality and equal pay – that he had “binders full of women” to choose from when it came to filling cabinet positions. Female voters didn’t buy it and President Barack Obama went on to win the female vote by 12 points in the general election three weeks later, according to Gallup. A whopping 53 percent of the electorate turned out to be women.

Romney won the male vote by 8 points, and that 20 point difference was the largest gender gap since the pollster began compiling the vote by subgroup in 1952.



It’s 2016 now, and the Republican Party’s problems with those same voters is much worse. In fact, Romney's numbers look stellar compared to current Republican front-runner Donald Trump's.

In a recent NBC/WSJ poll, 47 percent of Republican female primary voters said they could not imagine themselves voting for Trump. But the general female population likes him even less:According to a mid-March CNN/ORC poll, a staggering 73 percent of female voters have a negative view of the real-estate mogul. That’s up from 59 percent in December and 67 percent in late February.

Trump’s woes with women voters may not do him in just yet. He is the only remaining Republican presidential candidate with a plausible chance of racking up a majority of delegates before the Republican National Convention in July. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz would need to win 82 percent of the remaining delegates to win the nomination. Ohio Gov. John Kasich is already mathematically eliminated and would need to win the nomination on the convention floor.

The problem for Trump is that women make up a greater chunk of the electorate now than they did just one presidential election cycle ago. According to the U.S. Census, 67 percent of women are registered to vote and 58.5 percent have voted in the past, compared with 63.1 percent and 54.4 percent for men. The most recent Census data shows there are 124.8 million women and 118.1 million men of voting age.



Chart by Ethan Rosenberg for USN&WR; Source: U.S. Census

Chart by Ethan Rosenberg for USN&WR; Sourced: U.S. Census

Trump has given female voters a multitude of reasons to loathe him. In just the last week, Trump’s campaign manager was arrested and charged with misdemeanor battery for manhandling former Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields. Trump also went into a town hall with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and said women who receive illegal abortions should receive "some form of punishment.” He has since walked back those claims.

Trump’s catastrophic week is likely to end in an upsetting loss in Wisconsin on Tuesday, a state where Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has stretched what was a virtual polling tie just two weeks ago to a seven point lead.

A number of Trump’s surrogates have said the frontrunner will tone down his rhetoric in the future, but his ability to take a delegate majority before the convention – where just about anything could happen – is more in question now than ever. He’s going to need all the votes he can get – and he’s certainly not giving women any real incentive to Make America Great Again.



