Former Gov. Christie Whitman, a scion of establishment Republican Party royalty in New Jersey, is appalled at President Donald Trump's behavior — and isn't shy about letting the political world know it.

But she's also equally appalled now that some of her fellow Republicans are taking misogynistic cues from Trump as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to weigh sexual assault allegations leveled at Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Thursday.

And, in her view, that could spell disaster for a GOP which, under the guidance of Trump, has already closed its Big Tent to immigrants, Muslims and LGBT voters. Now, she fears that women will leave the party in droves — and permanently.

"There are people, not just women, so upset by what they see happening, but particularly as it relates to women, saying ‘we’ll throw all Republicans out,'' Whitman said in an interview with the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey and NorthJersey.com on Tuesday.

Whitman, who recently recorded an appeal to Republicans to start pushing for Trump's resignation, said Trump showed uncharacteristic restraint after Christine Blasey Ford, a California psychology professor, told the Washington Post that Kavanaugh tried to sexually assault her at a party in the early 1980s when they were teenagers. Kavanaugh has categorically denied the charges.

Yet, Trump finally broke his self-imposed restraint Friday by firing off a tweet that questioned Ford's credibility. That tweet gave other Republican Senate leaders — not to mention the 11 all-white men on the Senate Judiciary Committee — cover to suddenly start sowing doubts about Ford's account. To critics like Whitman, that will only infuriate women who see it as the male-world circling their wagons to protect an entitled prep-school-Ivy League groomed man, while a woman's trauma is minimized.

"There are women who are saying ‘enough of this already.’ And then to see the rest of the Republicans do this now?" she asked rhetorically. "This is the kind of thing that has women saying 'OK, this is endemic in the party now.' "

It's not just a Cassandra-like complaint. White women who are college educated and non-white women, regardless of their educational background, have fled the GOP since Trump's victory in 2016, according to polls.

And there are signs that the exodus continues to grow.

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Monmouth University conducted polls in two pivotal New Jersey congressional races this year, the Morris County-centered 11th District and the 7th District in Central Jersey, and they offer some insight. In both races, nearly 60 percent of women disapprove of the way Trump is doing his job, while most men approve. Women, by large majorities, disapprove of his policies and most want Democrats to regain control of Congress.

"At least right now, I can't say it's a core Democratic group as much as a core-anti-Trump group,'' said Patrick Murray, the Monmouth University pollster.

There are other troubling signs for the GOP.

Trump has inspired a whole new generation of women to enter politics, not because they are drawn to his policies, but to hold him and the Republicans in check and to preserve long-established protections for women, health care and civil rights.

This year, 476 women filed to run for House seats, a 60 percent jump from 2012, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. And 75 percent of them sought to run as Democrats.

Whitman says the GOP's problem with women began to worsen as the party's right wing began to assert its power and policies. The party's antagonism toward immigration, its opposition to abortion rights and health care have soured women voters, she argues.

"The party platform has got to change. It can't be so hard line,'' Whitman said. "I don't know what they are going to do. Because right now because Trump controls the party apparatus and unless he changes, which he isn't going to do, or unless he's gone, I don't see how you get over this."

For her part, she doesn't understand why Kavanaugh didn't insist on having an FBI investigation, which could have been done quickly and would have bolstered the hearing with evidence and more credibility.

Nor has she been willing to join the chorus of other Republicans who were initially willing to give Ford her chance to tell her story but now wonder if she's part of some Democratic Party conspiracy to take down Kavanaugh. She cited reports that another woman has come forward to accuse Kavanaugh of exposing himself at a dormitory party when he was a freshman at Yale.

And a third woman came forward Wednesday accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. Julie Swetnick, a client of attorney Michael Avenatti, alleged that Kavanaugh would drink to excess and "engage in abusive behavior" toward teenage girls while he was in high school.

In an explosive statement released by Avenatti, Swetnick claimed that in the 1980s, she witnessed efforts by Kavanaugh and his classmate, Mark Judge, to get teenage girls "inebriated and disoriented so they could then be 'gang raped' in a side room or bedroom by a 'train' of numerous boys."

"No one in their right mind would subject themselves to what you go through when you come forward like this,'' Whitman said. "You just can't dismiss what someone says because it was 30 years ago. We don't do that now when someone comes forward and says they were abused by a Catholic priest, everybody is on it like a blanket...the outrage is palpable. But when it's a woman from 30 years ago, it's "no, no, she can't remember. She's got it wrong.' "

Given concern over the women voters, Thursday's hearing looms as a political minefield for Judiciary Committee members of both parties, Whitman says. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the committee chairman, has hired Rachel Mitchell, a prosecutor from Arizona who specializes in sex crimes, to lead the questioning. Senators will be given five minutes each to question Ford, and then Kavanaugh, but will be able to defer to Mitchell if they choose.

But pressure will especially be on Republicans, who are struggling to convince women voters to stay in the party fold, Whitman says.

"If they don't do it in a real respectful way?'' she said. "It's going to be a real donnybrook for them."