FDU Poll: Sexism Drives Support for Trump in GOP Primary

 

 

 

Sexism Drives Support for Trump in GOP Primary

Christie polls well among Republicans with lower sexism, more liberal abortion views

Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, August 16, 2023 – Republicans who score high on a sexism scale prefer former President Donald Trump over his nearest competitor in the Presidential primary race by a margin of more than 60 points, but the race is much closer among less sexist Republicans. Republicans who support abortion rights also have very different views of the race than other Republicans, but their relatively small numbers limit the importance of this gap.

Overall, the latest results from the FDU Poll show that Trump has a commanding lead in the Republican primary race, with 58 percent of Republican likely primary voters saying that they support him; his nearest competitor, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, garners 15 percent support. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Vice President Mike Pence both poll at 5 percent. Christie is unique among the candidates in doing better among less sexist, and more pro-abortion, Republicans than other candidates.

“Trump has a lock on the most sexist Republicans,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of Government and Politics at FDU, and the director of the poll. “If the less sexist Republicans were to coalesce around one candidate, they’d be able to mount a challenge, but there’s no sign of that happening yet.”

Republicans who are higher in sexism are much more likely to say that they are supporting Trump in their state’s Republican primary contest. Among likely voters in a Republican primary who are in the lowest sexism group, Trump leads his nearest competition, Christie, by 30 points, 44 to 14. Among those in the highest sexism group, Trump leads his nearest competition, DeSantis, by 61 points, 74 to 13 (and Christie by 72 points, 74 to 2). Trump is the only candidate who does significantly better among those high, rather than low, in sexism. Christie is the only candidate who does significantly better among Republicans who are low in sexism.

“Trump has built his whole persona around projecting a certain kind of masculinity,” said Cassino. “It’s earned him wide support among the most sexist Republicans, but that could turn into a liability in a general election.”

The sexism measure results from three different questions linked to what scholars refer to as “hostile sexism.” The questions ask if women fail to appreciate what men do for them, if women seek to gain power by controlling men, and if most women interpret innocent remarks or acts as being sexist. More agreement with these statements leads to a respondent being considered more sexist. Respondents are divided up into three groups based on their scores: low (approximately the bottom quarter), moderate, and high (approximately the top quarter).

Among Republicans, men and women score about equally on the sexism measure, as do those who go to church more or less frequently. The biggest gap in the sexism scores within the Republican Party is based on age, with younger Republicans (those ages 30 and under) being much more likely to be in the highest sexism category than older Republicans (41 percent high, versus 17 to 21 percent for the other age groups).

“We normally think of older people as being more sexist,” said Cassino. “But there’s a real strain of online misogyny that’s become popular among young Republican men.”

Republicans’ views of abortion follow a similar pattern. Relatively few Republicans say that abortion should always be legal: 9 percent, versus 65 percent who say that it should be legal under some circumstances, and 22 percent who say that it should always be illegal. But among the group of pro-abortion Republicans, Trump has 30 percent support, with Christie and DeSantis tied at 16. Among the larger group who say that there are no circumstances under which abortion should be legal, Trump leads DeSantis by 49 points, 63 to 16, and Christie has just 1 percent support.

Among Republican likely primary voters, women are more likely to say that abortion should always be legal than men – but numbers among both men and women are low (6 percent and 12 percent). The biggest gap in abortion views among Republicans is linked with how often they go to church. Thirty-five percent Republicans who attend religious services weekly, or more often, say that abortion should always be illegal, compared to just 8 percent among those who seldom or never attend religious services.

While views on abortion are linked with sexism – respondents in the low sexism group are more likely to say that abortion should always be legal – abortion is less of a predictor of support for Trump than sexism, mostly because there’s less disagreement among Republicans about abortion than there is about sexism. Pro-abortion Republicans are less likely to support Trump, and while they’re more likely to support Christie who has a moderate view of abortion, they’re also more likely to support voters with strong anti-abortion views, like Pence and DeSantis.

“If you had to try and guess who a Republican is going to vote for based on just one thing, you’d want to know how sexist they are,” said Cassino. “Abortion views, age, religion – they all matter, but not nearly as much as sexism.”

The poll differs from some other polls about the Republican Presidential Primary race because it sampled likely voters in a Republican primary contest, rather than likely Republican voters more generally.

Methodology

The survey was conducted between July 31 and August 7, 2023, using a sample of 806 past voters in Republican primaries and other nomination contests (such as caucuses), and including Republicans who had voted in open primary contests (like those used in California). This sample was supplemented with a sample of registered Republicans who had not voted in previous primaries, but had registered in the years since the last competitive primary was held in their state (dominantly younger voters).

The surveys were carried out via call and text by Braun Research of Princeton, New Jersey. The initial sample was obtained from Aristotle International of Washington, DC. Respondents were randomly chosen from the list, and contacted via either live caller telephone interviews, or text-to-web surveys sent to cellular phones, resulting in an overall sample of 806 respondents. 243 of the surveys were carried out via live caller telephone interviews on landlines, and the remainder (563) were done on a web platform via weblinks sent via SMS to cell phones, or via live caller cell phone interviews. Surveys were conducted only in English.

In accordance with RNC guidelines for polls to be used for debate qualification in the Republican Presidential Primary, only minimal weights were used for the survey. The weights used, like all weights, balance the demographic characteristics of the sample to match known population parameters. The weighted results used here are balanced to match parameters for age and race/ethnicity.

SPSSINC RAKE, an SPSS extension module that simultaneously balances the distributions of all variables using the GENLOG procedure, was used to produce final weights. Weights were trimmed to prevent individual interviews from having too much influence on the final results. The use of these weights in statistical analysis helps to ensure that the demographic characteristics of the sample approximate the demographic characteristics of the target population. The size of these weights is used to construct the measure of design effects, which indicate the extent to which the reported results are being driven by the weights applied to the data, rather than found in the data itself. Simply put, these design effects tell us how many additional respondents would have been needed to get the weighted number of respondents across weighted categories: larger design effects indicate greater levels of under-representation in the data. In this case, calculated design effects are approximately 1.1.

All surveys are subject to sampling error, which is the expected probable difference between interviewing everyone in a population versus a scientific sampling drawn from that population. Sampling error should be adjusted to recognize the effect of weighting the data to better match the population. In this poll, the simple sampling error for 806 likely voters is +/-3.5 percentage points, at a 95 percent confidence interval. Including the design effects, the margin of error would be +/-3.9 percentage points, though the figure not including them is much more commonly reported.

This error calculation does not take into account other sources of variation inherent in public opinion studies, such as non-response, question wording, differences in translated forms, or context effects. While such errors are known to exist, they are often unquantifiable within a particular survey, and all efforts, such as randomization and extensive pre-testing of items, have been used to minimize them.

The FDU Poll is a member of AAPOR’s Transparency Initiative. Members of the Transparency Initiative are committed to providing all of the information that readers need to evaluate the validity of the survey results that we present. This includes giving complete information about our sampling process, weighting process, demographics, and the complete text and order of questions with every release that we put out. At a time when survey research is increasingly being called into question, we believe that this sort of transparency is vital to creating informed consumers of polling information, and building faith in our work.

Weighted Telephone Sample Characteristics

806 Likely Republican Primary Voters

Figures do not include individuals who declined to answer demographic items.

 

Man                                            

52%                N = 419

Woman                                        

47%                N = 381

Some Other Way                      

0.5%               N = 4

 

18-30                                        

2%             N = 18

31-44                                      

11%              N = 87

45-64                                      

40%              N = 328

65+                                          

46%              N = 375

 

White                                           

89%                N = 733

Black                                              

1%                  N = 6

Hispanic/Latino/a                                     

4%                  N = 30

Asian                                        

0.4%                 N = 13

Other/Multi-racial                                    

4%                  N = 29

 

Question Wording and Order

Screen. How likely do you think you are to vote in the 2024 Republican Presidential primary in your state when it happens?

1. Certain to Vote
2. Very Likely to Vote
3. Somewhat Likely to Vote [Terminate]
4. Not Very Likely to Vote [Terminate]
5. Not at all likely to Vote [Terminate]

US1. If the Republican Presidential Primary was held in your state today, who would you vote for? [Shuffle order of named options after Trump]

1. Donald Trump
2. Chris Christie
3. Ron DeSantis
4. Nikki Haley
5. Mike Pence
6. Vivek Ramaswamy
7. Or someone else?
8. Or do you not know?

 

US1a. [If “Someone Else” in US1] Would that be… [Shuffle order of named options]

1. Doug Burgum
2. Larry Elder
3. Will Hurd
4. Asa Hutchinson
5. Francis Suarez
6. Tim Scott
7. Or someone else?

 

US1b. [If “Don’t Know” in US1] Which candidate are you currently leaning towards? [Shuffle order of named options after Trump]

1. Donald Trump
2. Chris Christie
3. Ron DeSantis
4. Nikki Haley
5. Mike Pence
6. Vivek Ramaswamy
7. Or someone else?

 

US1c. [If “Someone Else” in US1b] Would that be… [Shuffle order of named options]

1. Doug Burgum
2. Larry Elder
3. Will Hurd
4. Asa Hutchinson
5. Francis Suarez
6. Tim Scott
7. Or someone else?

 

US1d. [If “Someone else” in US1a orUS1c] Who would that be? [Record Name]

 

US2a. [Half of sample gets this item here, half gets US2b] In your judgment, are the indictments against Donald Trump for tax evasion and mishandling classified documents legitimate, or not?

1. Legitimate
2. Illegitimate
3. Don’t Know

 

US3a. [If respondent favors Trump in US1 series] Are you open to supporting someone other than Trump in the primary, or would you not consider supporting anyone else?

1. Would consider someone else
2. Would not consider anyone else
3. Not Sure/Don’t Know [Vol]

 

US3b. [If respondent favors or leans towards anyone other than Trump in US1 series] Are you open to supporting Trump in the primary, or would you not consider supporting him?

1. Would consider supporting Trump
2. Would not consider supporting Trump
3. Not Sure/Don’t Know [Vol]

 

US2b. [Half of sample gets this item here, half gets US2a] In your judgment, are the indictments against Donald Trump for tax evasion and mishandling classified documents legitimate, or not?

1. Legitimate
2. Illegitimate
3. Don’t Know

US4. Do you think abortion should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?

1. Legal under any circumstances
2. Legal only under certain circumstances
3. Illegal in all circumstances
4. [Don’t Know/Refused]

US5. How likely do you think it is that there will be a second US Civil War in your lifetime?

1. Very Likely
2. Somewhat Likely
3. Not Very Likely
4. Not at all Likely
5. Not Sure

For the next few items, I’d like you to tell me if you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree with the statement, or if you’re not sure.

 

S1. Most women fail to appreciate all that men do for them.

1. Strongly Agree
2. Somewhat Agree
3. Somewhat Disagree
4. Strongly Disagree
5. Not Sure

 

S2. Women seek to gain power by getting control over men.

1. Strongly Agree
2. Somewhat Agree
3. Somewhat Disagree
4. Strongly Disagree
5. Not Sure

 

S3. Most women interpret innocent remarks or acts as being sexist.

1. Strongly Agree
2. Somewhat Agree
3. Somewhat Disagree
4. Strongly Disagree
5. Not Sure

We’re asking some questions to see how good a job the media is doing in informing the public. If you’re not sure of an answer, you can’t just say that you’re not sure.

K1. To the best of your knowledge, who is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom? Is it… [Shuffle order of answers]

1. Boris Johnson
2. Liz Truss
3. Rishi Sunak
4. Theresa May
5. Not Sure

 

K2. Who is the current Secretary of State of the United States? Is it… [Shuffle order of answers]

1. Anthony Blinken
2. Daniel Bennett Smith
3. John J. Sullivan
4. Mike Pompeo
5. Not Sure

 

K3. Who is the current Speaker of the House of the United States? Is it… [Shuffle order of answers]

1. John Boehner
2. Kevin McCarthy
3. Nancy Pelosi
4. Paul Ryan
5. Not Sure

 

Demos

Just a few more questions, for statistical purposes

D2A. To ensure we are reaching people of all ages, would you please tell me your age?

            ____    (ENTER AGE: 98=98+, 99 = REFUSED)

            [IF Don’t Know/REFUSED IN QD1, ASK:] 

D2B.  Would you be willing to tell us whether it’s between…?

1. Under 30
2. 31 to 44
3. 45 to 64
4. 65 or over
5. [Refused]

D10. Aside from weddings and funerals how often do you attend religious services… more than once a week, once a week, once or twice a month, a few times a year, seldom, or never?

1. More than once a week
2. Once a week
3. One or twice a month
4. A few times a year
5. Seldom
6. Never
7. Don’t Know [Vol]

1. Refused [Vol]

D6. How would you describe your sex? Do you describe yourself as …

1. A Man
2. A Woman
3. Some other way
4. [DK/REF]

D7. How would you describe your racial and ethnic background? You can pick as many as you’d like.

1. White
2. Black
3. Asian 
4. Hispanic/Latino/a/Spanish
5. Other or Multi-Racial
6. [Dk/Ref]

D8. Have you ever owned any cryptocurrency, NFTs, or other similar digital products? It’s fine if you don’t know what those are.

1. Yes
2. No
3. Don’t know what those are
4. [Refused]

D9. The traits that we see as being masculine or feminine are largely determined by society, and have changed dramatically over time. As a result, everyone has some combination of masculine and feminine traits, which may or may not correspond with whether they’re male or female. How do you see yourself? Would you say that you see yourself as…

1. Completely Masculine
2. Mostly Masculine
3. Slightly Masculine
4. Slightly Feminine
5. Mostly Feminine
6. Completely Feminine
7. [Dk/Ref – Vol]

 

Release Tables

A value of 0% in a cell means that respondents were recorded, but they consisted of less than 0.5% of the column, and the number rounds down to 0 percent. If there is no number in a cell, it means that no respondents were recorded in that cell.

 

If the Republican Presidential Primary was held in your state today, who would you vote for? (Includes Leaners)
		Abortion
	All	Always Legal	Sometimes Legal	Never Legal
Donald Trump	58%	30%	60%	63%
Chris Christie	5%	16%	5%	1%
Ron DeSantis	15%	16%	15%	14%
Nikki Haley	3%	5%	2%	4%
Mike Pence	5%	10%	4%	8%
Vivek Ramaswamy	3%	1%	4%	3%
Doug Burgum	1%	1%	1%
Larry Elder	0%		0%
Will Hurd	0%	2%
Asa Hutchinson	0%		1%
Tim Scott	2%		2%
Other	0%	2%	0%	1%
Don’t Know	6%	16%	5%	6%

 

If the Republican Presidential Primary was held in your state today, who would you vote for? (Includes Leaners)
		Sexism
	All	Low	Moderate	High
Donald Trump	58%	44%	58%	74%
Chris Christie	5%	14%	4%	2%
Ron DeSantis	15%	13%	17%	13%
Nikki Haley	3%	5%	2%	4%
Mike Pence	5%	7%	6%	2%
Vivek Ramaswamy	3%	4%	4%
Doug Burgum	1%	1%	1%
Larry Elder	0%		0%
Will Hurd	0%		0%
Asa Hutchinson	0%	1%	1%
Tim Scott	2%	3%	1%	1%
Other	0%	1%
Don’t Know	6%	7%	6%	4%

 

Do you think abortion should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?
		Religious Attendance
	All	Weekly+	Sometimes	Seldom/Never
Legal under any circumstances	9%	6%	8%	18%
Legal only under certain circumstances	65%	56%	81%	69%
Illegal in all circumstances	22%	35%	7%	8%
[VOL] Don’t Know/Refused	4%	3%	4%	5%

 

Do you think abortion should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?
		Sexism
	All	Low	Moderate	High
Legal under any circumstances	9%	16%	6%	8%
Legal only under certain circumstances	65%	61%	69%	64%
Illegal in all circumstances	22%	21%	22%	25%
[VOL] Don’t Know/Refused	4%	2%	3%	3%

 

Do you think abortion should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?
		Sex
	All	Men	Women
Legal under any circumstances	9%	6%	12%
Legal only under certain circumstances	65%	69%	62%
Illegal in all circumstances	22%	21%	24%
[VOL] Don’t Know/Refused	4%	4%	2%

 

Combined Sexism Score
		Religious Attendance
	All	Weekly+	Sometimes	Seldom/Never
Low	23%	21%	26%	25%
Moderate	57%	60%	53%	56%
High	20%	19%	21%	19%

 

Combined Sexism Score
		Abortion
	All	Always Legal	Sometimes Legal	Never Legal
Low	23%	42%	22%	22%
Moderate	57%	40%	59%	56%
High	20%	18%	19%	22%

 

Combined Sexism Score
		Sex
	All	Men	Women
Low	23%	22%	24%
Moderate	57%	60%	54%
High	20%	18%	22%

  

Combined Sexism Score
		Age
	All	30 or under	31 to 44	45 to 64	65+
Low	23%	24%	28%	25%	21%
Moderate	57%	35%	56%	54%	60%
High	20%	41%	17%	21%	19%

 

Combined Sexism Score
		Are indictments legitimate?
	All	Legitimate	Illegitimate	Don’t Know
Low	18%	32%	15%	9%
Moderate	75%	61%	78%	85%
High	7%	7%	7%	6%

  

Men Only: If the Republican Presidential Primary was held in your state today, who would you vote for? (Includes Leaners)
		Sexism
	Men	Low	Moderate	High
Donald Trump	61%	48%	63%	74%
Chris Christie	4%	10%	2%	2%
Ron DeSantis	17%	18%	17%	16%
Nikki Haley	3%	5%	2%	2%
Mike Pence	5%	6%	6%	2%
Vivek Ramaswamy	3%	4%	3%
Doug Burgum	0%	1%	0%
Larry Elder	0%		0%
Will Hurd	0%
Asa Hutchinson	0%		0%
Tim Scott	1%		0%
Other	1%	1%
Don’t Know	5%	5%	4%	5%

 

Women Only: If the Republican Presidential Primary was held in your state today, who would you vote for? (Includes Leaners)
		Sexism
	Women	Low	Moderate	High
Donald Trump	55%	41%	53%	73%
Chris Christie	7%	17%	5%	3%
Ron DeSantis	13%	9%	18%	10%
Nikki Haley	4%	5%	2%	6%
Mike Pence	6%	9%	6%	3%
Vivek Ramaswamy	3%	4%	4%
Doug Burgum	1%	1%	1%
Larry Elder	0%
Will Hurd	0%
Asa Hutchinson	1%		1%
Tim Scott	3%	2%	1%
Other	0%	5%	2%	3%
Don’t Know	7%	7%	8%	3%

 

Do you think abortion should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?
		Age
	All	30 or under	31 to 44	45 to 64	65+
Legal under any circumstances	9%	17%	15%	10%	7%
Legal only under certain circumstances	65%	55%	52%	67%	67%
Illegal in all circumstances	22%	28%	27%	20%	23%
[VOL] Don’t Know/Refused	4%		6%	3%	3%

Contact:                           

Dan Cassino 

Executive Director, FDU Poll    

973.896.7072/ dcassino@fdu.edu