While Trump’s remarks in the Priorities ad are gallingly boorish, they are also commonplace in the nation’s locker rooms and barrooms. A significant proportion of Trump’s growing support appears to come from the men (and to some degree the women) who are most resentful of the pressures of “repressive” political correctness and speech codes that they see as coercive. From this vantage point, feminism is seen as an enabler of the political correctness that they despise across the board.
This is one way to explain why the latest assaults on Hillary Clinton have been effective, eroding her support not only among men, but also among all whites, who are expected to make up 69 or 70 percent of the voters in November. She is, in fact, lagging behind President Obama, in terms of his level of white support in 2012. That year, Obama won 39 percent of the white vote, according to exit polls; the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll gives Clinton 33 percent of whites.
Further examination of the May Post/ABC poll provides no solace to Clinton. In sheer numbers, Clinton has suffered her biggest losses among men, especially white men. The percentage of college-educated white men who said they would vote for her dropped an astonishing 14 points from March to May (from 47 to 33 percent); among white men without college degrees, already a problem area for her campaign, Clinton’s support also fell, from 26 to 14 percent.
The question for the Clinton campaign is whether she can make up her losses among white men with gains among women, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanics, other ethnic minorities, LGBTQ activists, and those who value the protection traditionally provided by the Democratic Party for — and Clinton’s reliable commitment to — the disadvantaged.
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