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Donald Trump is leading Kamala Harris by 11 percentage points with male voters, according to a recent New York Times poll. Trump is carving out a definitive advantage with US men.
While Trump’s core support comes from white men, he has also made notable gains with Hispanic-American and African-American men. Though Trump has repeatedly denigrated Hispanics and regularly uses anti-immigrant rhetoric, this has not been a deal breaker for the Latino community. Surveys have shown that around 50% of Hispanic men think that Trump is “tough” enough to be president.
Trump helped ramp up disinformation around Barack Obama’s qualification to run as president by claiming that he had concerns about Obama’s birth certificate. Trump also defended white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, but these moves have not deterred some young African American men from supporting him. About one in four African American men under the age of 50 plan to vote for Trump, polls suggest.
Why young men like Trump
A lot of Trump’s support comes from young men, in particular. Pollsters noted that when President Joe Biden was still in the race, he had lost one particular category of Democrats – people who liked podcaster Joe Rogan – a demographic that is mostly young men aged 18-29.
Harris is underperforming compared with Joe Biden in 2020, and this is almost entirely due to losing support with young men. The same New York Times poll showed that Trump leads Harris among young men by 58% to 37%, more or less the same as Biden before he dropped out of the race.
One of the reasons why some men are flocking to Trump is that young American men have moved more to the right in general.
In 2024, young men are more likely to be Republican and more likely to see themselves as conservative than in the past, while the most progressive group in US history are young women. In fact, the gap between young men and young women and the politics they believe in has almost doubled in the past 25 years.
Young men may be drawn to Trump because he pushes against societal pressure that men need to be apologetic for being themselves. Almost two-thirds of American men believe that men should be represented and valued more in society, according to a YouGov study.
Another issue may be that some men face tremendous pressure to live up to certain expectations. Past research argued that most men who found Trump appealing were finding it difficult to live up to social standards of masculinity, referred to as a fragile masculinity hypothesis.
This connection was not associated with male support for Mitt Romney in 2012 or support for John McCain in 2008, but did correlate with support for Trump in 2016 and for Republicans in the midterm elections.
Trump has bolstered his macho image by increasingly acting on the campaign trail as if he is speaking to a bunch of guys in a locker room. He has become more profane and vulgar, even talking about the size of pro golfer Arnold Palmer’s penis in a bizarre campaign moment.
Trump also makes no attempt to be politically correct in the post-MeToo era, even complaining that noted sexual offender Harvey Weinstein got a raw deal .
Though many women were repelled by Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance’s past videos where he claimed Washington was run by childless cat ladies, it did little to turn off Trump’s supporters.
For some men, these ideas play into their fears about women becoming too powerful, and that men are facing a major threat to their social status. Some of these men that Vance has been trying to appeal to are Christian extremists who would like to overturn the 19th amendment (which gave US women the right to vote), and see women return to roles as homemakers.
Trump also taps into the fears that some men may have about the threats posed to them by women’s advancement. One-third of men who support Trump believe that women have made gains at men’s expense, rising to 40% for men under 50 who support Trump, according to Pew Research from 2024.
A survey from the Survey Center on American Life demonstrated that 19% of men say that women have it easier than men do, but it is men aged 18-29 who are twice as likely as men over the age of 64 to believe that this is the case.
Indeed, some of the struggles young American men face are not just imagined. A Pew Research survey from 2023 found that young men in the US were less likely than in years gone by to be financially independent or have a full-time job by the age of 25.
Young men are also less likely than young women to be enrolled in university, and have higher rates of suicide.
Why do most women not like Trump?
While Trump is doing well with some men, he has been haemorrhaging support from women. In particular, women have been mobilised by Trump and Vance’s misogynistic rhetoric, and by the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade, which had given American women the right to an abortion.
Support for reproductive rights does not differ much by gender with about 61% of men in support, compared to 64% of women, but the issue is more salient for women than men.
Sensing the issue of abortion could be a problem for Trump with female voters, he tried to connect with women claiming that he would be their “protector” and that he was the “father of IVF”.
But so far these strange statements, and Trump’s boorish comments may be turning off female voters – even white women – who were a core part of Trump’s support in 2016 and 2020. Trump only leads with white women by one percentage point in 2024, compared to seven points in 2020.
In a historic election that has been defined by a notable gender gap, the two candidates’ communication styles could not be more different. However, it remains to be seen which candidate’s gender advantage will propel them to victory.
Natasha Lindstaedt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
