Women accounted for nearly half of Trump’s 2020 campaign contributions in the first three months of 2019, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s a striking increase from the 2016 election cycle, when women accounted for just over a quarter of his campaign contributions, and well above the norm for modern GOP presidential nominees.

Whether the numbers reflect a genuine uptick in support for Trump among female voters is another question. Polls continue to show a pronounced gender gap in the president’s approval rating, and multiple investigations and lawsuits involving alleged acts of adultery and sexual assault are moving through the legal system as the 2020 campaign ramps up.

But Trump officials and top Republicans are celebrating the fundraising shift as evidence that, as an incumbent president, Trump can win over women in greater numbers than he did as an insurgent candidate.

“We’re clearly making huge strides,” said Tim Murtaugh, communications director for Trump’s 2020 campaign. Murtaugh specifically cited the campaign’s first quarter fundraising numbers showing a roughly 50-50 split between the sexes in the donations of $200 or more that must be reported to the Federal Election Commission. Overall, Trump’s campaign raised some $30 million during the quarter.

Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel pushed the message in a May 10 tweet, noting that Trump’s 2020 campaign had more female donors than any Democratic candidate, “and it’s not even close!” Trump’s first-quarter haul of 10,329 women donors was more than double the number of women who gave to the leading Democrat, Kamala Harris, though Harris and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand both had a proportion of female donors overall. Trump himself proudly retweeted the RNC chief’s tweet.

But the comparison is imperfect, given that Trump is virtually uncontested within his party while Democrats are dividing loyalties in a primary field of more than 20 candidates.

And when considering all of Trump’s 2020 campaign fundraising, which began right after his 2017 inauguration, the proportion that comes from women — 36.3 percent — is less impressive.

Still, Trump’s strong first-quarter showing with female donors is noteworthy.

His campaign largely credits the economy, among other things, pointing to a CNN poll last week that showed Trump’s approval rating among women for his handling of the economy jumping 10 points since the government shut down earlier this year.

“Women understand good economic times just like everybody else,” Murtaugh added.

But the uptick in female financial support is also the product of a targeted online fundraising effort that is giving the Trump campaign a handy talking point about his gender appeal.

Through its partnership with the RNC, Trump’s team has been building a robust fundraising operation and says it hopes to raise $1 billion for 2020. Part of that effort has included deliberate digital outreach to Republican or Republican-leaning women on platforms like Facebook, according to two campaign officials.

One example is a recent ad marking first lady Melania Trump’s birthday.

The ad targeted female Facebook users in battleground states during the month of April, asking them to sign an online birthday card for the first lady. “We all know that Melania is an INCREDIBLE wife, mother, and First Lady,” reads a message posted above the video on Trump’s official Facebook account. “Help me show her how much the American people love her!”

The campaign also recently ran Second Amendment ads focused on women who support gun rights, and has plans to roll out a “women’s focus coalition” in the coming weeks that will oversee a robust effort to engage women across every battleground state through volunteer events and women-specific outreach initiatives, the officials said. Similar grassroots coalitions in early voting states in 2016 included a mix of “Women for Trump” volunteers and skilled field organizers employed by the campaign.

Some Trump allies warn that Trump’s campaign has much more work to do with women voters. One former White House official pointed with concern to a recent Harvard Institute of Politics poll which found that 64 percent of women ages 18 to 29 plan to vote in 2020 — and that only 15 percent think the U.S. is headed in the right direction.

In a recent POLITICO/Morning Consult survey, meanwhile only 55 percent of self-identified Republican women said they “definitely” would vote today to re-elect the president.

And in a head-to-head match-up against the current Democratic front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden, the same poll found that women would back Biden — who himself faces charges of insensitivity to women — over Trump 45 to 28 percent.

Patrick Murray, director of the nonpartisan Monmouth University Polling Institute, said there are reasons unrelated to Trump’s policies and attitudes towards women that might be boosting the money he’s getting from them.

“Part of it is that he is president now and I would expect a lot of these donations are just traditional Republican donors supporting their party’s standard-bearer,” Murray said.

“The other part is that Trump was not doing as much fundraising the last time around,” he added. Trump spent $66 million of his own fortune on his campaign in 2016, accounting for approximately 20 percent of his overall funds raised by Election Day.

Trump aides insist there’s more to it than that. They argue that Trump — whose senior advisers are overwhelmingly male — has a “female forward” staff that includes women in some highly public positions like White House press secretary.

“We’re talking about First Lady Melania Trump’s ‘Be Best’ initiative, Ivanka’s work on paid family leave, Lara Trump, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kayleigh McEnany, Katrina Pierson, myself, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Kellyanne Conway,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Erin Perrine. “You look at who is in the camp around the president and you will see a lot of female voices.”

When the Trump campaign announced a slew of hires on Thursday, however, the lineup was overwhelmingly male. Of the 18 new staffers, only three are women.