A recent study by the firm CloudResearch in New York focused on voters who feel social pressure not to admit their support for the president. 11.7% said they would not report their true feelings to pollsters.

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LifeZette decided to delve further into the issue and spoke to two noted leaders who are Republicans. One, Stacy Shea, is an ace South Carolina political operative. The other, who prefers anonymity, is a former GOP operative and current public sector executive in a Mid-Atlantic state. Both not only agreed with the general analysis of “shy” Trump voters undercounted by pollsters, but specified they thought the phenomenon more prominent, also in the social sense, amongst women.

Stacy Shea: “Even in deep red states like South Carolina, people who plan to vote for the president are concerned that their support of him may invite scorn and other unpleasant repercussions. They don’t want the conflict over politics so they’re not being open about how they plan to vote in November. At a recent social gathering completely unrelated to politics, I overheard two ladies talking about the upcoming election and saying anyone who votes for Trump is insane and only showing their lack of intelligence. Right about that time they looked over at me and I smiled back at them. Silenced.

“Yesterday a seventy-year-old woman told me about how she proudly flies a Trump flag on her car, but when she parks and goes into the grocery store, she takes it down because she’s concerned that someone will vandalize her car. None of this changes our support of the president. But for many,  it’s not worth the conflict to share our voting intentions. Pollsters will never know just how large the president’s silent supporters are.”

Our second source: “The reason I reman silent about it is because the Democrats are frighteningly out of control, scary, and I feel they will harm my children. The Left seems to be filled with irrational radicals who have convinced the lazy and unethical into believing that they have a right to the same good way of life that only comes from hard work… The Left constantly throws gasoline on the fire. Whenever you challenge them, they react with a venom. They ostracize you for supporting the belief that hard work is rewarded. Worse yet, they target children by making sure their own children avoid and exclude my children.”

Men tend to react more directly when faced with a challenge to their political opinions, but are also silenced to some degree because of business considerations. Says one male covert GOP activist who works in publishing, “I won’t come out of the conservative closet at work because I don’t want the issues it would bring. A lot of it would come from HR and the PC crowd here, most of them women.”

If the president’s poll numbers are undercounted even by half the number in the CloudResearch study, then he could be tied with Biden at this date. But that is scant solace to many, including many women, who would pay a social and even professional price for admitting they support the president.