(CNN)If Republican Roy Moore wins next week's Senate special election in Alabama, it will be largely because of his support among women.

More specifically, Moore's ability to survive the allegations of sexually pursuing young girls, which have rocked his campaign, will likely turn on whether he can maintain his pre-scandal advantage among white women without a college education -- even as their college-educated counterparts have moved toward Democrat Doug Jones in much bigger numbers than usual for deeply conservative Alabama, according to public and private polling in the race.

With that contrast, the Alabama race is illuminating one of the least understood political trends of the Donald Trump era. Many commentators have warned that Republicans face a systemic problem with female voters under Trump -- and could see that difficulty deepen if Moore wins and is seated in the Senate. But that conclusion is far too sweeping. Rather than a monolithic response, the Trump era instead is widening the divide between the political preferences of white-collar and blue-collar white women.

The much-touted gender gap hasn't disappeared. Whether looking at whites, blacks or Hispanics, Democrats consistently run better among women than men (or from the other angle, Republicans run better among men than women).

But in the Trump era, the class divide looks more powerful than the gender divide, especially among whites. In the 2016 presidential race, Trump ran much better among white women without a college education than those with an advanced degree. In fact, the gap between the two groups was by far the widest recorded in exit polls since at least the presidential race of 1980.