Poll: Trump leads with military voters

Donald Trump leads among military voters, but his support has slipped among military women after a series of sexual misconduct allegations, a new poll says.

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has 40 percent support among active-duty troops, the joint Military Times/Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families survey found.

{mosads}Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson comes in second with 27 percent, with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton at 20.6 percent.

Trump’s support is up 2 points from September’s edition of the same poll, while Johnson’s is down 10 points.

But Clinton gained 13 points among female troops — from 23 percent in September to 36.1 percent now. Meanwhile, Trump slipped from 26.7 to 25.7 percent support among military women.

“Trump perpetuates ‘the boys will be boys’ mentality that does not reflect current military culture,” Military Times quoted a female Army master sergeant respondent as writing. “It’s both dangerous and disrespectful.”

Earlier this month, a video from 2005 surfaced of Trump speaking lewdly about groping and kissing women, and subsequently Trump has faced a series of allegations of sexual misconduct.

Johnson slipped after a number of foreign policy gaffes in recent weeks. In early September, Johnson did not know in an interview what Aleppo is. The city is the epicenter of the Syrian humanitarian crisis.

In another interview at the end of September, Johnson could not identify a world leader he admired. He’s also suggested that a lack of knowledge of geography would prevent him from getting into wars and made comments comparing civilian deaths caused by the U.S. military to those caused by the Syrian regime.

The Military Times/Institute for Veterans and Military Families survey was taken Oct. 12–14 online by 2,486 active duty troops. The margin of error is 2 percentage points.