Washington (CNN) Moments before her father accepted his party's nomination, Ivanka Trump appeared on the stage in Cleveland, defending him as "colorblind and gender neutral," imploring would-be supporters to judge Donald Trump "by his results."

In a campaign ad released in May, the 34-year-old Trump was the face of the campaign's most overt appeal to women, saying that her father "understands the needs of a modern workforce" and is committed to changing "outdated labor laws" to support women and children.

And, confronted about her father's past treatment of women, she was steadfast and defiant, even telling CBS This Morning that her father was "not a groper."

Now with 26 days until Election Day, her father's campaign has been rocked with allegations that he groped, touched or acted inappropriately toward women, Donald Trump's chief character witness has been publicly silent.

She has not commented about the tapes of Trump's conversation with Billy Bush of "Access Hollywood" in which Trump spoke in vulgar and crude terms about women, nor has she commented on her father's own words against her which include condoning the radio host Howard Stern referring to her as a "piece of ass.

Ivanka Trump returned to the campaign trail Thursday for a series of small events, described as coffees, in the suburbs of Philadelphia. A recent Bloomberg poll showed that voters from that area favor Hillary Clinton by a wide 28-point margin.

In Trump's first event in Malvern, Pennsylvania, she didn't mount a full-throated defense of her father. Instead, as she took questions from Erin Elmore, a Trump supporter who appeared on "The Apprentice," the allegations of groping went unnoticed.

Photos: Donald Trump's rise Photos: Donald Trump's rise President-elect Donald Trump has been in the spotlight for years. From developing real estate and producing and starring in TV shows, he became a celebrity long before winning the White House. Hide Caption 1 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump at age 4. He was born in 1946 to Fred and Mary Trump in New York City. His father was a real estate developer. Hide Caption 2 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump, left, in a family photo. He was the second-youngest of five children. Hide Caption 3 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump, center, stands at attention during his senior year at the New York Military Academy in 1964. Hide Caption 4 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump, center, wears a baseball uniform at the New York Military Academy in 1964. After he graduated from the boarding school, he went to college. He started at Fordham University before transferring and later graduating from the Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania's business school. Hide Caption 5 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump stands with Alfred Eisenpreis, New York's economic development administrator, in 1976 while they look at a sketch of a new 1,400-room renovation project of the Commodore Hotel. After graduating college in 1968, Trump worked with his father on developments in Queens and Brooklyn before purchasing or building multiple properties in New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Those properties included Trump Tower in New York and Trump Plaza and multiple casinos in Atlantic City. Hide Caption 6 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump attends an event to mark the start of construction of the New York Convention Center in 1979. Hide Caption 7 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump wears a hard hat at the Trump Tower construction site in New York in 1980. Hide Caption 8 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump was married to Ivana Zelnicek Trump from 1977 to 1990, when they divorced. They had three children together: Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric. Hide Caption 9 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise The Trump family, circa 1986. Hide Caption 10 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump uses his personal helicopter to get around New York in 1987. Hide Caption 11 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump stands in the atrium of the Trump Tower. Hide Caption 12 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump attends the opening of his new Atlantic City casino, the Taj Mahal, in 1989. Hide Caption 13 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump signs his second book, "Trump: Surviving at the Top," in 1990. Trump has published at least 16 other books, including "The Art of the Deal" and "The America We Deserve." Hide Caption 14 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump and singer Michael Jackson pose for a photo before traveling to visit Ryan White, a young child with AIDS, in 1990. Hide Caption 15 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump dips his second wife, Marla Maples, after the couple married in a private ceremony in New York in December 1993. The couple divorced in 1999 and had one daughter together, Tiffany. Hide Caption 16 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump putts a golf ball in his New York office in 1998. Hide Caption 17 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise An advertisement for the television show "The Apprentice" hangs at Trump Tower in 2004. The show launched in January of that year. In January 2008, the show returned as "Celebrity Apprentice." Hide Caption 18 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise A 12-inch talking Trump doll is on display at a toy store in New York in September 2004. Hide Caption 19 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump attends a news conference in 2005 that announced the establishment of Trump University. From 2005 until it closed in 2010, Trump University had about 10,000 people sign up for a program that promised success in real estate. Three separate lawsuits -- two class-action suits filed in California and one filed by New York's attorney general -- argued that the program was mired in fraud and deception. Trump's camp rejected the suits' claims as "baseless." And Trump has charged that the New York case against him is politically motivated. Hide Caption 20 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump attends the U.S. Open tennis tournament with his third wife, Melania Knauss-Trump, and their son, Barron, in 2006. Trump and Knauss married in 2005. Hide Caption 21 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump wrestles with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin at WrestleMania in 2007. Trump has close ties with the WWE and its CEO, Vince McMahon. Hide Caption 22 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise For "The Apprentice," Trump was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2007. Hide Caption 23 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump appears on the set of "The Celebrity Apprentice" with two of his children -- Donald Jr. and Ivanka -- in 2009. Hide Caption 24 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump poses with Miss Universe contestants in 2011. Trump had been executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants since 1996. Hide Caption 25 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise In 2012, Trump announces his endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Hide Caption 26 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump speaks in Sarasota, Florida, after accepting the Statesman of the Year Award at the Sarasota GOP dinner in August 2012. It was shortly before the Republican National Convention in nearby Tampa. Hide Caption 27 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump appears on stage with singer Nick Jonas and television personality Giuliana Rancic during the 2013 Miss USA pageant. Hide Caption 28 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise In June 2015, during a speech from Trump Tower, Trump announced that he was running for President. He said he would give up "The Apprentice" to run. Hide Caption 29 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump -- flanked by U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz -- speaks during a CNN debate in Miami on March 10. Trump dominated the GOP primaries and emerged as the presumptive nominee in May. Hide Caption 30 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise The Trump family poses for a photo in New York in April. Hide Caption 31 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump speaks during a campaign event in Evansville, Indiana, on April 28. After Trump won the Indiana primary, his last two competitors dropped out of the GOP race. Hide Caption 32 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump delivers a speech at the Republican National Convention in July, accepting the party's nomination for President. "I have had a truly great life in business," he said. "But now, my sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our country -- to go to work for you. It's time to deliver a victory for the American people." Hide Caption 33 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump faces Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the first presidential debate, which took place in Hempstead, New York, in September. Hide Caption 34 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump apologizes in a video, posted to his Twitter account in October, for vulgar and sexually aggressive remarks he made a decade ago regarding women. "I said it, I was wrong and I apologize," Trump said, referring to lewd comments he made during a previously unaired taping of "Access Hollywood." Multiple Republican leaders rescinded their endorsements of Trump after the footage was released. Hide Caption 35 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump walks on stage with his family after he was declared the election winner on November 9. "Ours was not a campaign, but rather, an incredible and great movement," he told his supporters in New York. Hide Caption 36 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump is joined by his family as he is sworn in as President on January 20. Hide Caption 37 of 37

Trump fielded a series of short, largely personal questions and praised her father as a "great dad" and as someone who has big visions for America.

"What I can uniquely talk to all of you about is my father as a personal mentor and a role model to me as a great dad growing up," she said.

Until Thursday, her only recent public appearance had been at Sunday's presidential debate after which she did not publicly weigh in on her father's performance. Public statements have largely been relegated to social media; Ivanka Trump's Instagram is full of her promoting her #WomenWhoWork campaign, the title of her forthcoming book. There is one photo of the Gateway Arch, the iconic structure synonymous with St. Louis. There are none of her father or with members of her family from the debate.

Since the Republican National Convention, her public involvement with the campaign has primarily been to push the paid family leave proposal that runs counter to GOP orthodoxy and which she convinced her father to add to his platform. She pitched that plan to conservative congressional leaders in late September.

Ivanka Trump mounted a defense of those policies in an interview with Cosmopolitan that appears to be her most recent public comments on behalf of the campaign. Met with questions about her father's past statement that "pregnancy is an inconvenience," Trump accused the interviewer of having "a lot of negativity" and ultimately cut that interview short.

Ivanka Trump's long history of softening her father

From the early days of the campaign, Ivanka Trump has done effectively what few other campaign surrogates have: showing voters the best version of her father. She's stepped, seemingly easily, into the role played by a campaign spouse, one that her stepmother Melania Trump has eschewed.

It was Ivanka, not Melania Trump, who who introduced Donald Trump when he announced his long-shot bid for the Republican nomination in June and it was Ivanka who has risen time and again to her father's defense and is a key part of the Republican nominee's inner circle.

During an April town hall event with CNN, Ivanka spoke at length about her father's record of championing women in business, saying that Donald Trump "believes in inspiring women, empowering women."

In July, she told the Sunday Times of London that her father is a feminist and a "big reason I am the woman I am today."

Perhaps Ivanka's most prominent role as her father's most redeeming surrogate was during the Republican convention when she introduced her father to would-be supporters as a fighter who will fight for you."

The speech was a departure from much of the harsh rhetoric that filled the preceding days of the convention. Gone were the chants of "lock her up" aimed at Trump's rival. Instead, Ivanka Trump channeled her own growing celebrity and sought to bridge the divide with the female voters her father has struggled with during the entirety of his campaign.

"At our family's company, there are more female than male executives," Ivanka Trump said to applause. "Women are paid equally for the work that we do, and when a woman becomes a mother, she is supported -- not shut out."

She is also the face of the Trump campaign's most overt effort to woo women voters, speaking directly into the camera in a television ad titled "Motherhood."

"The most important job any woman could have is being a mother -- and it shouldn't mean taking a paycut," Trump said in the ad which includes pictures of Ivanka Trump with her children and video of Trump playing with his grandchildren.

It includes details of the affordable childcare policies Donald Trump rolled out with Ivanka by his side and was a blatant attempt to increase Trump's standing with women.

Donald Trump has repeatedly commented on his daughter's appearance

Donald Trump's comments about the appearances and sexuality of women also extend to comments about his daughter.

In 2006, he suggested that if she weren't his daughter, "perhaps I'd be dating her." And a review of hours of audio from the Republican nominee's appearances on the Howard Stern show spanning nearly two decades, found Trump commenting on Ivanka Trump's body more than once, including an exchange about her breast size.

In an October 2006 interview, Stern asked Trump whether his daughter had ever gotten breast implants and Trump responded by saying that his daughter had "always been very voluptuous" and was an "amazing beauty."

In an earlier interview, recorded in September 2004, Stern asked Donald Trump whether he could refer to Ivanka Trump as a "piece of ass."

Donald Trump, responded affirmatively, saying that he could.

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway was asked by CNN's Anderson Cooper why these comments were acceptable. Conway responded that Ivanka Trump and her father have a "beautiful relationship."

"I don't know if you're trying to drive a wedge between those two, but good luck," Conway told Cooper. "They're very close and have a beautiful relationship."

Ivanka Trump, meanwhile, did not respond to requests for comment and has not responded to her father's claims or addressed the 2005 video.

The comments put Ivanka Trump in an increasingly difficult position. As a mother and an executive who has built her brand on empowering women, will she defend the comments her father has made about her and the behavior he has purportedly displayed toward other women?

She has, at least once.

After allegations that her father had groped a woman in a business meeting surfaced in May, Ivanka Trump told CBS This Morning that her father was "not a groper" and denied that he frequently commented on women's bodies and appearances.

"That's not who he is. I've known my father obviously my whole life and he has total respect for women," she told CBS.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misidentified the person interviewing Ivanka Trump in Malvern.