More Than a Third of Women Lawmakers Have Said They Won’t Support Trump

Republican lawmakers and candidates have almost uniformly denounced the lewd remarks that Donald Trump made in a 2005 video that leaked on Oct. 7. But while they were quick to condemn the comments, in which Trump bragged about non-consensual sexual contact with women, a large majority of elected Republican officials say they still support their party’s nominee for president.

Among female governors, senators and House members, however, the divide isn’t so stark. There are three Republican female governors, six women among GOP senators and 22 in the House. According to Motto’s tabulations, 11 of those 31 women have either renounced support for Trump or called on him to drop out of the race—35 percent, compared to 17 percent of men in the same positions.

The ranks of disaffected female Republicans originally stood at 13, but Senators Deb Fischer and Shelley Moore Capito have recent reversed course said they will vote for Trump.

Women account for 9 percent of the 331 elected Republicans in the Congress and statehouses, so the difference of a few endorsements can have a large effect on the numbers. But with twice the level of support among men, gender appears to play a significant role in whether a lawmaker chooses to take the extraordinary step of breaking ranks with her party’s nominee for president.