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

He’s campaigned with men who use sexist and crude language. He’s expressed alarm at the idea that wives might vote differently from their husbands.

And the former Republican president has suggested that Democrat Kamala Harris, who is trying to become the first woman to win the White House, would get “overwhelmed” and “melt down” facing male authoritarian leaders he considers tough.

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

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

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, at an event with the Republican presidential nominee, likened Trump to an angry father providing tough love to a “bad little girl” who, as Carlson put it, was “in need of a vigorous spanking.”

Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point, which is playing a key role in the campaign’s get-out-the-vote operation, has said that any man who votes against Trump is “not a man.” Kirk also has said wives who covertly vote for Harris “undermine their husbands” — describing a man “who probably works his tail off to make sure that she can go and have a nice life and provide to the family.”

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On Saturday night, Trump laughed along with a crude joke about Harris, nearly a week after a speaker at his Madison Square Garden rally suggested the vice president was like a prostitute controlled by “pimp handlers.” As Trump repeated his claim, made without evidence, that Harris lied about working at McDonalds in her youth, someone in the crowd yelled, “She worked on the corner.”

Trump laughed, looked around and pointed toward a section of the crowd.

“This place is amazing,” he said to cheers. “Just 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 far more likely to say they’re supporting Harris than Trump — by a double-digit margin in some surveys.

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

Women generally vote at higher rates 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, versus 44% men, according to TargetSmart, a political data firm.

“This is not a time for them to get overly masculine with this bromance thing that they’ve got going,” said Nikki Haley, who competed with Trump for the GOP nomination this year, in a recent Fox News interview. “Women will vote. They care about how they’re being talked to. And they care about the issues.”

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

Trump has been aggressively courting men. Trump’s team has spent months trying to reach younger men, in particular, with a series of interviews on popular male-centric podcasts and appearances at football games and mixed martial arts fights. His campaign has been dominated by machismo, evident for example when former pro 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.

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

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

But his efforts to win women back have often landed flat.

Speaking Saturday in Gastonia, North Carolina, at his first of nearly a dozen rallies during the race’s final weekend, Trump acknowledged the blowback he has received for saying that, as president, he would “protect” women. He continued, nonetheless, to repeat the line as he insisted women love him and that he was right.

“I believe that women have to be protected. Men have to be, children, everybody. But women have to be protected where they’re at home in suburbia,” he said. “When you’re home in your house alone and you have this monster that got out of prison and he’s got, you know, six charges of murdering six different people, I think you’d rather have Trump.”

Trump’s campaign believes his focus on crime and illegal immigration will help him win over “security moms.” At his rallies, he has featured the stories of mothers whose children were killed by people in the country who are 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 frequent denunciation of transgender rights holds sway.

In Salem, Virginia, on Saturday, Trump brought to the stage female athletes from Roanoke College, where a transgender woman had asked and then withdrew her request to join the women’s swimming team.

In a statement, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt defended Trump’s approach. “Women deserve a President who will secure our nation’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.

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

“I want protection. I mean, we all do, 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 that scary feeling. So for me, it makes me feel really good to have someone protect me and a man protect me.”

She said she could not understand why women would support Harris, but thinks men are drawn to Trump because “he is that alpha male. And for me, I love the alpha male. I grew up with a dad that was an alpha male.”

Harris, meanwhile, has 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 geared toward Black men, a traditionally Democratic constituency where Trump appears to be making inroads. She was asked in an interview with CNN on Saturday whether she believes women will make the difference in this election.

“I believe all Americans are going to make the difference. And I intend to be a president for all Americans,” she said.

Trump has pushed back on a suggestion by top Harris surrogate Mark Cuban that Trump does not surround himself with strong, intelligent women. Trump notes that he hired women to lead his 2016 and 2024 campaigns.

But as he has tried to undercut Harris, who is the first woman to be elected vice president, Trump has repeatedly turned to gendered language.

“She certainly can’t handle (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, President Xi of China. She will get overwhelmed, melt down and millions of people will die,” he said Saturday.

On Saturday night, he repeated his claim that he is the “father of fertilization,” awkwardly and falsely taking credit for a fertility procedure that was briefly outlawed in Alabama by a state Supreme Court ruling due to the overturning of Roe.

And at recent rallies, Trump, who was found liable for sexual abuse and has been accused by more than two dozen women of sexual misconduct, has noted female supporters in the audience and mused about how he cannot call them beautiful anymore.

“You have to be very careful. Everything you say. You know, like there’s some women that are very beautiful in the audience. I would never say that,” Trump said. “If I said they were beautiful, that’s the end of my political career.”

___ Cooper reported from Phoenix.