WESTERVILLE, Ohio (AP) – For Donald Trump to win the White House in November, he’ll need the votes of women like lifelong Republican Wendy Emery.

Yet the 52-year-old from the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio is struggling with the idea of voting for her party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

“I’m just disappointed, really disappointed,” she said while standing in her arts and crafts shop. She and her circle of friends are “still in shock” over Trump’s success and wonder who’s voting for him, “because we don’t know any of them”.

Emery’s negative impression of Trump was shared by most of the dozens of white, suburban women from politically important states who were interviewed by The Associated Press this spring. Their views are reflected in opinion polls, such as a recent AP-GfK survey that found 70 per cent of women have unfavourable opinions of Trump.

Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign sees that staggering figure as a tantalising general election opening.

While white voters continue to abandon the Democratic Party, small gains with white women could help put likely nominee Clinton over the top if the November election is close. Democrats believe these women could open up opportunities for Clinton in North Carolina, where President Barack Obama struggled with white voters in his narrow loss in the state in 2012, and even in Georgia, a Republican stronghold that Democrats hope to make competitive.

Patty Funderburg of Charlotte, North Carolina voted for Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, but says she’s already convinced that Trump won’t get her vote.

“He’s not who I’d want to represent our country,” said Funderburg, a 54-year-old mother of three.

Trump insists he’s “going to do great with women”. He’s accused Clinton of playing the “woman’s card” in her bid to become the first female commander-in-chief. He’s said he will link her aggressively to past indiscretions with women by her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

The businessman also has previewed an argument focused on national security, with echoes of the pitch that President George W Bush successfully made to white suburban women during his 2004 re-election.

“Women want, above all else, they want security,” Trump told The Associated Press recently. “They want to have a strong military, they want to have strong borders. They don’t want crime.” He said “Hillary is viewed poorly on that.”

Not so in the AP-GfK poll. About 40 per cent of women surveyed said Clinton would be best at protecting the country and handling the threat posed by the Islamic State group, and about 30 per cent said Trump.

Throughout the primary, Clinton has talked about policies meant to appeal to women: equal pay, expanded child care, paid family and medical leave and more.

Trump has his own complicated past regarding women and has faced criticism for his actions both in his personal life and at his businesses toward them. He’s vigorously defended his treatment of women, as has his daughter Ivanka Trump, who said her father “has total respect for women”.

A super political action committee (PAC) backing Clinton has released its first television advertisements featuring Trump’s contentious statements about women.

“Does Donald Trump really speak for you?” the super PAC ad asks.

For many of the women interviewed, the answer appears to be no.

“He’s just a jerk,” said Elizabeth Andrus, a registered Republican in Delaware, Ohio, who says she voted twice for Obama. She praised Trump’s political skills and argued his business career indicates an intellect and ability that could benefit the nation.

But his temperament, she said, is somewhere between “buffoonery” and “complete narcissism”.

“It would be like having Putin for president,” she added, referring to Russia’s sometimes belligerent president, Vladimir Putin.

Erin Freedman, a 38-year-old from Reston, Virginia, said Trump “scares the crap out of me”. While she’s an enthusiastic backer of Clinton’s primary rival, Bernie Sanders, she said she’d have no problem backing the former secretary of state against Trump in a general election.

Even some reluctant Trump supporters say they want him to dial back the braggadocio and caustic insults, and engage people more seriously.

“He’s the nominee, so I’ll vote for him,” said Renee Herman, a 45-year-old from Sunbury, Ohio, who preferred retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and her home-state governor, John Kasich, in the GOP primary field. “But it’s time we get past all this showmanship and hear from him what he actually wants to do and his plans for how to do it.”