By Jill Colvin and Jonathan J. Cooper, Associated Press

GASTONIA, North Carolina (AP) — Donald Trump says he will be the “protector” of women, whether they like it or not.

He has campaigned against men who use sexist and crude language. He said he was alarmed by the idea that wives might vote differently from their husbands.

And the former Republican president suggested that Democrats Kamala Harriswho is trying to become the first woman to win the White House, would be “overwhelmed” and “collapse” in the face of authoritarian male leaders he considers tough.

In the final days of his campaign, Trump stuck to a gendered worldview that his critics consider outdated and paternalistic, even as he acknowledges that some of that language got him “so much trouble.” with a crucial group of voters.

Trump and some of his most prominent allies peddled outright sexism.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, during an event with the Republican presidential candidate, compared Trump to an angry father who gives tough love to a “bad little girl” who, as said Carlson, “needed a vigorous spanking.”

Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point, which plays a key role in the get-out-the-vote campaign operation, said everything man who votes against Trump is “not a man”. Kirk also said wives who secretly vote for Harris are “undermining their husbands” – describing a man “who is probably working his tail off to make sure she can go away and have a good life and provide for the family.” family “.

On Saturday night, Trump laughed with a crude joke about Harris, nearly a week after a speaker at his rally at Madison Square Garden suggested the vice president was like a prostitute controlled by “pimps.” As Trump has said his claim, made without evidence that Harris lied about working at McDonald’s in his youth, someone in the crowd shouted, “She worked nearby.”

Trump laughed, looked around and pointed at part of the crowd.

“This place is amazing,” he said to applause. “Remember, it’s other people saying it. It’s not me.

Trump has faced a persistent gender gap since Harris entered the race in July. Women are much more likely to say they support Harris than Trump — by a double-digit margin in some surveys.

That could be enough to prove decisive in what both teams expect to be an extremely close race that ends on Tuesday.

Women generally vote more than men. In 2020, they made up 53% of the electorate, according to AP VoteCast. Among the nearly 67.2 million Americans who have already voted, about 53% are women, compared to 44% men, according to TargetSmart, a political data company.

“Now is not the time for them to get too masculine with this bromance thing they have going on,” said Nikki Haleywho competed with Trump for the GOP nomination this year, in a recent interview on Fox News. “Women will vote. They care about how people talk to them. And they care about the problems.

Trump did not campaign with Haley, who was a U.N. ambassador during his administration, despite her offers to appear with him.

Trump is aggressively courting men. Trump’s team has spent months trying to reach younger men, particularly with a interview series on popular male-centric podcasts and appearances at football games and mixed martial arts fights. His campaign was dominated by machismo, evident for example when former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan ripped off his shirt as he took the stage at the Republican National Convention and later at the Madison Square Garden rally.

The song “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World” is often played at Trump events.

Trump was always expected to face challenges with women this year after appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, effectively ending the constitutionally guaranteed right to abortion and paving the way for a wave of restrictions in Republican-led states.

But his efforts to win back women often failed.

Speaking Saturday in Gastonia, North Carolina, at the first of a dozen rallies during the final weekend of the race, Trump acknowledged the blowback he received for saying that as as president, he would “protect” women. However, he continued to repeat this phrase, insisting that women love him and that he was right.

“I believe that women must be protected. Men must be, children, everyone. But women must be protected where they are at home, in the suburbs,” he said. “When you’re home alone and you have this monster who got out of prison and he has, you know, six charges of murdering six different people, I think you’d rather have Trump.”

Trump’s campaign believes a focus on crime and illegal immigration will help him win over the “safety moms.” At his rallies, he has presented the stories of mothers whose children have been killed by people living in the United States illegally. That includes Alexis Nungaray, whose 12-year-old daughter Jocelyn was killed by two suspected Venezuelan gang members.

The campaign also believes that Trump’s policies frequent denunciation of transgender rights holds the top.

On Saturday in Salem, Virginia, Trump brought to the stage female athletes from Roanoke College, where a transgender woman had applied and then withdrew her application to join the women’s swim team.

In a statement, Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt defended Trump’s approach. “Women deserve a president who will secure our country’s borders, remove violent criminals from our neighborhoods, and build an economy that helps our families thrive – and that’s exactly what President Trump will do,” she said. declared.

Several attendees at his rallies said they welcomed Trump’s promise to be a “protector.”

“I want protection. I mean, we all do it, right? We don’t want to feel like we’re not protected,” said Kim Saunders, 52, a small business owner who lives in Williamsburg, Virginia. “It’s this scary feeling. So for me, it feels really good to have someone who protects me and to have a man protect me.

She said she doesn’t understand why women would support Harris, but she thinks men are attracted to Trump because “he’s that alpha male.” And for me, I love the alpha male. I grew up with a father who was an alpha male.

Harris, for his part, seized on Trump’s remarks, highlighting them in speeches and online.

The vice president has tried to address her own side of the gender gap, appearing on podcasts and doing interviews particularly aimed at black men, a traditionally Democratic constituency in which Trump appears to be making inroads. She was asked in an interview with CNN on Saturday if she thought women would make a difference in this election.

“I believe that all Americans will make a difference. And I intend to be a president for all Americans,” she said.