Exclusive: Lara Trump has a message for women: It's OK to like Donald Trump even if you don't love his style

In the 2018 midterms, suburban women rejected the GOP in large numbers, raising fears in the party that a similar gender gap could play out in the November presidential election.Through the “Women for Trump” initiative spearheaded by Lara Trump, the campaign is trying to energize the president's female supporters and make inroads with women who like some aspects of Trump’s presidency but dislike others.“Whether you don’t like everything he says, or the way he says it, or his hair or whatever it is, you can’t argue that what he’s done hasn't worked in this country,” she told USA TODAY while crisscrossing Iowa on a bus tour.Working with other officials on the campaign, the president's daughter-in-law is looking to turn out the “hidden Trump vote,” a concept promoted in 2016 by White House senior adviser and former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who argued that Trump has support among some women who are reluctant to say so publicly.“Whenever you’re talking about Donald Trump, I think now even more so than in 2016 people are really afraid sometimes to voice their support,” Lara Trump said. Trump later said he regretted the comments and called them "locker room" talk.Exit polls from the 2016 election showed that 53% of men backed Trump, while only 42% of women supported him – a gap of 11 percentage points.According to a USA TODAY/Ipsos poll this month, more than half of suburban women, 54%, believe a Democratic nominee would be better for the country than Trump. The group often points out that women make up half of the campaign and three officials – including Trump and McEnany – have given birth over the last year.The Wilmington, N.C., native has held “Women for Trump” events in suburban areas across the Rust Belt, often arriving ahead of the president’s campaign rallies, which typically draw a more raucous crowd.Celinda Lake, a longtime Democratic pollster who is currently advising Joe Biden's campaign, said Trump's penchant for personal attacks has turned off many women.“About half of swing women think he could tweet us into a war,” said Lake, who co-wrote the book “What Women Really Want” with Kellyanne Conway.The USA TODAY/Ipsos poll found slightly more suburban women opposed Trump's economic and employment policies than approved of them, 40 percent to 36 percent and 39 percent to 35 percent, respectively.But on average, the proportion of suburban women who opposed Trump’s policies on childcare, healthcare and education was 24 percentage points higher than the proportion who said they supported them.Lara Trump emphasizes the unemployment rate of 3.6 percent – a nearly 50-year low — and stock market gains to argue the economy is working for working for women. But anyone who spends time with her wouldn’t hate her.”But whether her appeal will be enough to convince female voters to keep Trump in office is less clear.In the USA TODAY/Ipsos poll, among those who identified as Republicans, 88% said they supported Trump's economic policies, reaffirming the campaign's strategy of highlighting the president's jobs record.MORE: Women edged out men in the workforce for the first time in almost a decade.