MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Frustrated Republicans grappled privately with new fears about Donald Trump's impact on their party Wednesday, as the billionaire businessman's rivals targeted his punitive plan for fighting abortion and extraordinary defense of his campaign manager who police say assaulted a female reporter.
Concern rippled through Republican circles nationwide, yet few dared criticize the GOP front-runner directly when pressed. Their silence underscored the deep uncertainty plaguing the party - particularly its most prominent women - who are growing increasingly concerned a Trump presidential nomination could tarnish the party brand for a generation of women and young people.
"A nominee who cannot speak to women cannot win," said New Hampshire party chairwoman Jennifer Horn, though declining to rebuke Trump by name.
Weighing in on abortion, a subject that remains highly controversial decades after the Supreme Court legalized it, Trump declared women who get the operations should receive "some form of punishment." He did not recommend what that punishment should be in taped comments from an MSNBC town hall-style meeting in Wisconsin that was aired Wednesday evening.
After the excerpt came out, Trump's campaign issued a further statement from the candidate: "This issue is unclear and should be put back into the states for determination. Like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions, which I have outlined numerous times."
On the dispute that has been dominating attention in the campaign, Trump questioned the findings of Jupiter, Florida, police, who charged his closest political adviser, Corey Lewandowski, with misdemeanor battery after examining surveillance video of an incident, in which a reporter said she was grabbed and shoved. The police report said the woman's arm revealed "bruising from what appeared to be several finger marks indicating a grabbing-type injury."
"I don't know who created those bruises," Trump said Wednesday.
The Republican front-runner suggested his campaign manager was simply trying to protect him from Michelle Fields, a reporter for Breitbart News at the time, who was trying to ask him a question after a March 8 campaign appearance.
"She's got a pen in her arm, which she's not supposed to have, and it shows that she's a very aggressive person who's grabbing at me and touching me," Trump said. "Maybe I should file charges against her."
As Trump assailed Fields from a television studio, Republican rival Ted Cruz surrounded himself with women as he courted Wisconsin voters ahead of the state's high-stakes primary contest next Tuesday. Cruz leads the state by 9 points among likely voters, according to a Marquette University Law School poll released Wednesday.
Cruz campaigned in Madison with his wife, mother, two daughters and even their nanny in what he called a "celebration of women."
"We're here because we love our families," Cruz declared, declining to repeat his harsh criticism of Trump from the day before. "Women are not a special interest. Women are a majority of the United State of America. And every issue is a women's issue."
Women favored President Barrack Obama by 11 points over GOP nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, a divide highlighted in the Republican National Committee's post-election study. "Our inability to win their votes is losing us elections," the report's authors wrote.