Young Men Could Cost Kamala Harris the Election

In an extremely tight election race, young men could sway the result in favor of former President Donald Trump, polling suggests.
With only a few days to go until the election, polls are closer than ever, with 538’s tracker showing Vice President Kamala Harris leading by 1.2 points, while every swing state is within a 2-point margin. Meanwhile, the Cook Political Report released its final projections on Friday, which revealed the election is a toss-up.
Amid what could be the closest election in 150 years, both candidates are making last-ditch attempts to appeal to their bases to go out and vote. For Trump, that is mostly older voters and white working-class voters, as well as men. For Harris it is younger and college-educated voters, as well as Black and Hispanic voters and women. But recent polling indicates that there is one group that is shifting toward the right—and it could cost Harris the election.
According to recent polling, young men are much more Republican than young women and are poised to back Trump.
While there aren’t many polls that report results among young men and young women, an average of the last three New York Times/Siena College national polls, conducted between September and October, revealed that Trump leads Harris among young men, 58 percent to 37 percent, although Harris holds an even larger lead among young women, 67 percent to 28 percent.
Another poll, conducted by the Harvard Kennedy School among 2,002 18-to-29-year-olds in September, found a 10-point gender gap, with 38 percent of men supporting Trump, compared to 28 percent of women, and 49 percent of men supporting Harris, compared to 59 percent of women.
Recent polling conducted by the Alliance for Black Equality, conducted between October 15 and 19, found that Generation Z Black men were the most likely group of Black voters to support Trump, with 35 percent of the demographic backing the former president. The poll surveyed nearly 1,500 respondents and had a margin of error of approximately +/- 2.6 percent.
Newsweek has contacted the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment via email.
“The young men’s vote could be decisive in a very close election,” Jackson Katz, the co-founder of the Young Men’s Research Initiative told Newsweek. “There’s a huge gender gap among younger voters; young women support Harris overwhelmingly. Young men support her as well, but by much smaller percentages.”
For Katz, the appeal of Trump and his campaign to young men lies in his identity-based campaign strategy.
“The Trump campaign’s main strategy with men—especially, but not exclusively, white men—is an identity-based appeal. They want to drive home the idea that ‘real men vote Republican,'” he said.
“It’s not about issues, per se. This is perhaps even more apparent when it comes to young men. They hold liberal and progressive views on a number of issues—abortion rights, climate change, support for labor unions, etc. And yet the youngest cohort appears to be moving to the right in terms of party identification and support for Trump.
“What accounts for this, I think, is identity politics. Trump and MAGA have made explicit outreach to men, and young men, a critical part of their strategy.
“Since Donald Trump emerged as a presidential candidate in 2016, the main goal of the Trump campaign has been to frame it as a men’s movement and to frame the Democrats as the party of women and feminized men, and it’s been unbelievably relentless,” he added.
Research has supported this theory. Nonprofit research group Blueprint, which focuses on the well-being of men, found that 50 percent of men say it describes Democrats well to say they think masculinity is bad. And Ipsos found 68 percent of Republicans and 6 percent of Democrats agree that “the Democratic Party is hostile to masculine values.”
Frank Gonzalez, an associate professor of political science at the University of Arizona, agreed with Katz, telling Newsweek: “Trump represents this anti-PC, ‘Be proud to be masculine’ culture that is finding a lot of popularity online these days. Black and Latino men, in particular, have been somewhat susceptible to this because masculinity, strength, being able to provide for one’s family, and the like are all highly valued in these populations.
“Machismo, for lack of a better term, is a way of maintaining one’s self-esteem when one’s status and dignity are under threat, and so Trump’s macho persona may seem like a beacon for young Black and Brown men who are searching for a source of dignity, respect and identity in today’s world.”
He continued: “Conservative figures like [Turning Point USA co-founder] Charlie Kirk and [journalist] Ben Shapiro have spent many years now crafting their campaign to woo young voters—male voters in particular—to the right. There is also a preponderance of influencers and podcasts out there right now that are, on their face, apolitical, but really seem to be pumping up highly gendered ideas about society. I am thinking of Joe Rogan but also the Kill Tony show and others like that.”
Both candidates have sought to appeal to younger voters throughout this election through alternative media channels like podcasts that are shared on YouTube. Trump has appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience, the Shawn Ryan Show, as well as Theo Von’s podcast and Lex Fridman’s. All four podcasts draw a largely young, male audience—a demographic that Trump is leaning into in order to gain support.
Meanwhile, Harris declined to appear on The Joe Rogan Experience. For Katz, this was a disappointing move from her campaign.
“I’ve been hoping that she was going to go on Joe Rogan Experience, because I think that would have been a very powerful statement to young men,” he said.
“It would have been a statement to them that she sees them, she cares about them, and she wants to do whatever she can to help them. Because I think a big part of the narrative that’s emerged over the last decade is that Democrats hate white men, or they don’t care about white men. They don’t care about the struggles of white men, especially young white men. And I think that’s completely untrue.”
According to Katz, in order to rectify this, the Democrats need to create a “permission structure” for men to vote for Harris.
“I think what the Democrats need to do is to create a permission structure for men, including white men, to vote for Kamala Harris. The Republican right-wing media universe and certainly the Trump campaign relentlessly mock and ridicule men who vote for the Democrats and so what we do have to do to counteract that is to show men who are credible and trusted messengers with other men who say, I’m voting for Kamala Harris, and it’s OK,” he said.
“If recognizably ‘masculine’ figures support Harris, it gives young men a ‘permission structure’ to do likewise. That’s why Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recent endorsement of Harris is significant.”
The actor and former Republican governor of California endorsed Harris this week.
“We need to close the door on this chapter of American history, and I know that former President Trump won’t do that,” Schwarzenegger wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “He will divide, he will insult, he will find new ways to be more un-American than he already has been, and we, the people, will get nothing but more anger.”
Trump’s campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, dismissed the endorsement, previously telling Newsweek: “Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks too highly of himself if he actually believes his endorsement will matter. He hasn’t been relevant in 15 years.”
Despite Schwarzenegger’s endorsement, Katz thinks the Democratic Party has “not done a very good job of articulating how their policy agenda is much better for young men and men’s struggles than the Republican policy agenda,” which could hurt them on election day.
Research by the Young Men’s Research Initiative shows that the Republicans have outspent the Democrats in targeting young men nationally and in battleground states. In October, Republican-aligned groups outspent Democratic-aligned groups four to one on election advertising aimed at young men, according to the research. And in Pennsylvania, the Democrats were outspent 10.5 to one in targeting young men in October.
However, Katz suggests there is still some hope for Harris if young women show up to vote and if young men stay home.
“We know that young women seem to be very motivated to vote in this election, both because they’re supporting Kamala Harris and because of the importance of abortion rights on the ballot, but we don’t know, there could be many fewer young men coming out to vote,” he said.
“And I think part of the challenge in the Trump campaign has been to try to motivate more young men to come out than normally do come out, because they know they’re going to lose really badly among women, and especially among young women.”
Alvin Tillery, founder of Alliance for Black Equality and co-founder of the 2040 Strategy Group, told Newsweek he believes that if Harris shifts her messaging to highlight the risks of a Trump presidency, she could win back support from young men, especially young Black men.
“Our polling shows that when you expose young Black men to details about Donald Trump’s agenda, they respond with significant shifts in support towards VP Harris,” he said. “This tells me that what we are seeing in the polling of young men is more the Democrat’s failures to message directly to them about issues they care about than anything about their cohort.”
Recent polling by Alliance for Black Equality, conducted between October 2 and 4, revealed Harris could boost her support among younger Black male voters by as much as 15 percent if she shifts her messaging to highlight the risks of a Trump presidency. Specifically, her campaign should focus on Trump’s plans to implement nationwide stop-and-frisk policies, his record of undermining federal civil rights and his endorsement of Project 2025 initiatives.
Meanwhile, Alliance for Black Equality’s latest poll shows that between October 4 and October 19, Harris’ support among Black Gen Z men jumped from 59 percent to 69 percent. The poll showed even more improvement for Harris’ support among Black men aged 23-29, which rose from 49.9 percent to 62.2 percent over the same time period. Support among Black men aged 18-22 moved from 47.7 percent to 52.7 percent.
Update 11/3/2024 10:50 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.