Explaining his decision on Friday, Erickson said that though he had “tried to give [Trump] great latitude, his remark about Megyn Kelly was a bridge too far”. In an online blogpost, he added: “There are even lines blunt talkers and unprofessional politicians should not cross. Decency is one of those lines.”

Erickson also told reporters: “I don’t want to put words in [Trump’s] mouth and I hate using the label misogynist because I think its used too much but he’s suggesting a woman as a lady asked him a question and did so because it was her time of the month.

“It’s just not right. I’ve said a lot of shit in my life – and you can certainly quote me on the record using that word – but I would never suggest anything like that.”

Things Erickson has suggested include the notion that “Obama’s marxist harpy wife would go Lorena Bobbitt on him” – Bobbitt was a Virginia woman who in 1993 cut off her husband’s penis – should he even think about it”.

It, in this instance, was “shagging hookers behind the media’s back”.

Erickson has also suggested that there was nothing wrong with calling Davis, who in 2013 mounted a 13-hour filibuster against a Texas abortion law, “abortion Barbie”.

“The phrase was intentional to discredit Wendy Davis,” he subsequently told the Houston Chronicle, “but I never thought about ‘Barbie’ being something that demeaned women. I have an eight-year-old daughter who loves Barbie.”

On his own RedState blog – from which in 2010 he officially purged “birthers”, those who question Barack Obama’s right to be president – he wrote: “As an aside, one of the most hilarious bits of this is seeing liberals proclaim all references to someone as ‘Barbie’ sexist. Really?”

Erickson has regularly taken aim at feminists in general. In 2010, referring to an anti-abortion ad that ran during the Super Bowl, he tweeted: “that’s it?!?! That’s what the feminazis were enraged over? Seriously?!? Wow. That’s what being too ugly to get a date does to your brain.”