Democratic-aligned organizations and the Harris-Walz campaign itself must provide more messaging that speaks directly to young men.
For anyone who still doubts the central role of gender in American politics, consider that the outcome of the incredibly consequential election on Nov. 5 might come down to whether more women come out to vote for Kamala Harris than men come out to support Donald Trump.
The political commentariat has paid more attention to gender during this campaign cycle—especially masculinity—than ever before. It’s actually been tough to keep track of all the different angles the pundits have used to talk about it.
This level of attention to how “masculinity” debates shape presidential elections is a relatively recent development. But the gendered subtext of American politics is hardly a new dynamic. In fact, Republican strategists have been using coded (and overt) masculinity appeals to white men since the 1970s—a subject we cover in detail in my new film The Man Card: 50 Years of Gender, Power, and the American Presidency.
Since the rise of Trump and MAGA, Republican strategists have been actively seeking to use a variation of these appeals to harvest the votes of low-information Black and Latino men as well.
The political commentariat has paid more attention to gender during this campaign cycle—especially masculinity—than ever before.
The gender gap in voting—which has been around since the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan—is as large today as it’s ever been. This is not only because a woman of color is on the ballot. Even before Harris replaced Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, women and men were far apart when it came to which party and candidate they supported.
The roots of this gap preceded Trump’s entrance into presidential politics, but the larger-than-life presence of the misogynous and bombastic blue-collar billionaire has widened and deepened the gap into a chasm. It’s especially notable among 18- to 29-year-old voters, where a recent Harvard poll showed a 30 point difference between young women and men’s support for Harris.
What’s going on here? The Young Men Research Initiative, which I co-founded earlier this year, has looked closely at this question. According to YMRI’s Shauna Daly, young men are at the center of furious debate this cycle.
“Polls show young men drifting to the right in terms of political party identity,” she said, “while largely remaining progressive on many policy issues (climate, abortion and healthcare).”
“Young men have become a true swing group, right at 50/50. Some have asked whether young men are turning against gender equality and feminism, and wondered whether cultural debates (more than traditional policy issues) are driving them to the right,” Daly said about the presidential election.
One question is whether young men are in fact still in favor of gender equality, but simply don’t identify with the term “feminism.” In other words, is the apparent right-wing shift more of a messaging problem?
Daly points out that the data shows that fewer men identify as feminist, and that spans all ages, especially in the wake of #MeToo. In 2020, Pew Research Center found that 40 percent of adult men said the word “feminist” described them well, compared to only 25 percent found by the Survey Center on American Life in 2024.
However, Daly says that according to YMRI’s analysis of the available polling data, “we see a range of areas in which young men’s concern about gender equality has grown, and in some cases they are less supportive of equality than older men. It is not just about the term ‘feminism.’”
There are many reasons why young men might be expressing misgivings about gender equality. But one that rises to the top in terms of American party politics is that many young men don’t believe the Democratic Party sees them, speaks to them, or cares about them—especially young white men.
This is a message driven home daily in the conservative media infotainment complex, where it is considered axiomatic that Democrats “hate white men,” and think they’re all toxic knuckle draggers.
Richard Reeves, founding president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, said Republicans are “signaling a pro-male stance, with no policy substance.”
But Democrats, he said, have “existing initiatives that are a good starting point for a strong pro-male policy platform. But they have been reluctant to package them as such and could do much more.”
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has made outreach to young male voters a central component of its electoral strategy. They know they’re going to lose the women’s vote by a large margin, so their only chance of victory is to run the table with male voters—especially young, white male voters. That is why Trump has done a series of interviews on “brocasts” popular with young men like the Nelk Brothers, Theo Von and Lex Fridman.
It’s also why Trump appears often at UFC fights, whose audiences are overwhelmingly male and disproportionately Black and Latino. It’s Branding 101, for both Trump and the UFC. As Sam Eagan wrote in The New Republic, “The UFC is betting that it can leverage right-wing politics to become a massive sports organization,” and Trump has embraced it “as an extension of his own brash and violent brand—and as a means of reaching young men.”
The Trump campaign and GOP-aligned groups have outspent the Democrats 14-1 in messaging that targets young men.
With less than three weeks to go before the election, both campaigns are actively courting the young men’s vote with ads on social media and campaign appearances. The Trump campaign has spent millions of dollars for outreach to young men. Harris herself just did an interview with The Breakfast Club podcast’s Charlamagne Tha God, who is especially popular with young Black men, and her campaign is reportedly in touch with Joe Rogan’s producers.
For Harris, these interviews with brocasters are especially important, because they serve to counteract the perception—fed to millions of men and young men daily in the misogynous manosphere—that feminists like Harris either have contempt for men, or they’re afraid to debate their ideas and agenda with men who might disagree and push back. Both of these premises are absurd, but one side has been making them, mostly unrebutted, in right-wing media for a generation.
According to YMRI, in the 2024 campaign season, the Trump campaign and GOP-aligned groups have outspent the Democrats 14-1 in messaging that targets young men.
As we get closer to Election Day, a key question for Democrats is whether Democratic-aligned organizations, and the Harris-Walz campaign itself, can provide substantive policy proposals—like support for entrepreneurship, funding for technical colleges and job training, marijuana decriminalization and “freedom” messaging on abortion rights—and stronger, more assertive messaging that speaks directly to young men.
The stakes are high. In a very close election, especially in the battleground states, the young men’s vote could make a crucial difference. A shift of just a few thousand votes in one direction or another could mean the difference between the first (feminist) woman president, or a return to the reactionary, anti-feminist leadership of a would-be strongman.
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