NORTH CAROLINA - As former president Donald Trump faces a deficit with women in polls, he has spent some of the final days of his campaign defending himself from accusations of misogyny.

       Yet there he was on the night of Nov 2, chuckling after a supporter shouted a crude joke suggesting that the woman Trump is running against had been a prostitute.

       At a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, Trump was once again needling Vice-President Kamala Harris over her descriptions of working at McDonald’s when he was interrupted.

       “She worked on the corner,” a man in the audience shouted.

       Trump chuckled as some in the crowd began to laugh. Others groaned or looked uneasy. He looked to one side of the stage in wry disbelief, and then turned towards the other direction to find the source of the remark.

       Apparently spotting the man in the crowd, he pointed to him and shook his head in faint, amused disapproval.

       He remained silent for about 15 seconds – unusually long for a Trump speech – and then said: “This place is amazing.”

       “Just remember,” Trump added, “it’s other people saying it. It’s not me.”

       Over the course of the campaign, Trump and his allies have made a series of misogynistic and sexually oriented attacks against Ms Harris, the first female vice-president.

       Right-wing media figures frequently insinuate that she “slept her way to the top”, and Trump has used his social media account to amplify crude sexual jokes along similar lines.

       In October, at a rally at Madison Square Garden, the Trump campaign gave the stage to a businessman who compared Ms Harris to a prostitute who had “pimp handlers”.

       Trump later in the week vowed that he would protect American women “whether the women like it or not”, a remark that Ms Harris and her allies seized on to draw attention to the former president’s role in overturning Roe v Wade and to his history of sexist remarks.

       Polls have shown that Trump is facing a significant gender gap, with female voters favouring Ms Harris.

       The Trump campaign has been trying to narrow the gap, in part by latching onto comments made by billionaire Mark Cuban, a top surrogate of Ms Harris’ who said on The View that Trump had never been surrounded by “strong, intelligent women”.

       Trump acknowledged during rallies in North Carolina and Virginia on Nov 2 that his pledge to “protect” women had drawn concern from some of his advisers.

       But he stayed committed to his vow, saying that women needed to be protected “when they’re at home in suburbia” as he made exaggerated, fearmongering claims about immigrant crime. NYTIMES