there is a split-screen view of women voters in the 2016 campaign. teary-eyed supporters of the first would-be female president are wearing suffragette white and growing hoarse cheering for democrat hillary clinton. their daughters are wearing t-shirts that say <u+201c>i<u+2019>m with her.<u+201d> at republican donald trump <u+2019>s events, some women dress like jailbirds or wear profane t-shirts to show what they think of mrs. clinton. female rally-goers have been waving <u+201c>women for trump<u+201d> signs at the television cameras to counter what they see as media bias, particularly after the release of a 2005 audiotape in which the gop nominee brags that his celebrity status gave him the freedom to grope women. if mrs. clinton on tuesday becomes the first woman elected president, her historic win would likely be propelled by an unprecedented gender gap. but in all likelihood, more than one-third of the female electorate will choose mr. trump, and for some of them, a history-making moment in america would feel more like the end of the world. <u+201c>if she gets in, i will be done with watching the news because i don<u+2019>t want to have to see her face,<u+201d> said linda dupere, a 69-year-old retired postal worker who came to a recent trump rally in manchester, n.h., wearing a red, white and blue scarf tied with a campaign pin. in dozens of interviews at trump rallies, women described mrs. clinton as a <u+201c>crook<u+201d> and a <u+201c>liar.<u+201d> many of their complaints are the same as the ones lodged by male detractors<u+2014>her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state, her leadership when four americans died in a terrorist attack in benghazi, libya, and alleged conflicts of interest surrounding her family<u+2019>s foundation. but some expressed more female-focused qualms about mrs. clinton, such as disgust that she stayed married to former president bill clinton despite his infidelities. some claimed, as mr. trump has, that she threatened her husband<u+2019>s female accusers. these women largely dismissed mr. trump<u+2019>s videotaped remarks as harmless and excoriated the women who say he did, in fact, grope them. <u+201c>i think they probably liked it at the time,<u+201d> said ellen greene, a 74-year-old retired real-estate agent also at the manchester rally. <u+201c>so he was a flamboyant man, sowing his oats. if he did that to me, i would just slap him in the face.<u+201d> mrs. clinton is leading by 13 points among female voters, according to the latest wall street journal/nbc news poll. her advantage exceeds the 10-point margin by which president barack obama won among women voters in the 2012 election, and on average, the 8-point gap favoring the democratic nominee since 1980, according to exit poll data gathered by the pew research center. mr trump holds an 8-point edge with men in the new journal poll. education, race and age are the major fault lines between clinton women and trump women in the survey, which included third-party candidates. women under 50 years old lean toward mrs. clinton, 51-30%, while older women are more evenly divided, 48-40%. black and hispanic women overwhelmingly back mrs. clinton; white women favor mr. trump by 8 points. among white women with a college degree, mrs. clinton leads by 18 points. mr. trump<u+2019>s advantage with white women without a college degree is an even wider 24 points. by contrast, the much smaller african-american vote was solidly unified behind barack obama<u+2019>s 2008 election as the first black president of the u.s. he won 95% of the black vote, according to exit polls. both democratic and republican women who support mrs. clinton say the animosity toward her, in part, comes from the zeal that characterizes many supporters of mr. trump. women at the trump rallies are frequently the most demonstrably hostile to mrs. clinton. last month, a woman in kinston, n.c., carried a clinton effigy with a noose around her neck, while a woman in manchester brandished a pin-stuck clinton voodoo doll. <u+201c>it<u+2019>s a very strange phenomenon, this irrational hatred for hillary clinton, and i think it<u+2019>s because republicans have been telling them for years how horrible she is,<u+201d> said meghan milloy, chairwoman of a group she helped start in washington in the spring called republican women for hillary. ms. milloy, 29, is director of financial-services policy at the american action forum, a conservative think tank. she has never voted for a democrat before but says mr. trump<u+2019>s behavior toward women, derogatory comments about immigrants, lack of policy knowledge and volatile temperament make him impossible for her to support. <u+201c>we obviously don<u+2019>t agree with hillary on a lot of stuff, but forget about that<u+2014>trump is very dangerous,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>this is a man that sees women as objects and second-class citizens.<u+201d> back to the split screen. at a florida republican party dinner in tampa in mid-october, just one week after the 2005 tape became public, a couple dozen female gop activists donned <u+201c>trump girl<u+201d> buttons to show their support for the nominee. the button was the brainchild of 68-year-old cherie billings, chairwoman of the nassau county republican party, and it featured a logo of a red, white and blue, high-heeled pump. <u+201c>trump is a man who will say what he thinks and do what he wants to do, and i like that,<u+201d> she said. at a recent trump rally in cedar rapids, iowa, friends sherri vesely, 45, and diana tanke, 50, came with three young daughters between them, all wearing homemade, hot-pink trump t-shirts. asked if their kids had heard mr. trump<u+2019>s crude remarks, they shrugged. <u+201c>sounds like my husband and my brother. my uncle talks like that, too,<u+201d> ms. vesely said. <u+201c>nothing new.<u+201d> amy wasmer, a 27-year-old stay-at-home mom, was wearing a homemade t-shirt that said <u+201c>classy women for trump<u+201d> at a rally held after the gop nominee called mrs. clinton a <u+201c>nasty woman<u+201d> in the last presidential debate. <u+201c>it was harsh, but some women are classy and some women are nasty, and hillary made her choice,<u+201d> she said. such hostility astonishes kerry bowen, a 65-year-old retired phone-company employee who lives in windsor heights, iowa. <u+201c>voting for hillary was something i<u+2019>ve waited all my life to do. i was so proud to cast my vote and remember all the women who struggled to have that right.<u+201d> ana navarro, who advised former republican presidential candidates john mccain and jon huntsman, has been one of mr. trump<u+2019>s most outspoken critics as a commentator on cnn this year. she declined to criticize her republican sisters who wouldn<u+2019>t celebrate the first female president if mrs. clinton wins. <u+201c>i do find it worrisome that there<u+2019>s such a level of personal animosity that could make it harder for her to unite the country and to govern,<u+201d> ms. navarro said. <u+201c>but as women we should have the freedom to see the historical significance as each of us want to.<u+201d> <u+2014>dante chinni contributed to this article. write to beth reinhard at beth.reinhard@wsj.com
campaign reveals fault lines among women voters - wsj
beth reinhard