Very interesting stuff.
Would love to see the reactions from an audience not located on an "elite coast."
I think there's more at play here than just the candidates' personalities and mannerisms. My uneducated guess is that the NY crowd is more accepting of a female perspective, regardless of message, and that a crowd in Enid, OK, would find the "female" Trump unpalatable.
I also disagree with the methodology: they tainted the response pool by telegraphing the personalities behind the message. They should try picking some random sound bytes from each candidate and have the opposite gender deliver them for reaction. The current setup brings too much baggage with the viewer to be scientific, in my opinion.
Total speculation, of course, and I'd love to see this experiment played out in multiple venues across the nation.
Not to sound contrary but did they do this hoping perhaps the opposite would happen and it backfired a bit?
I think that's very likely.