Voters seem to be divided by gender lines when it comes to who they are voting for in this year’s presidential election.
Elizabeth Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, said the gender gap this election cycle does not only come from hot button topics like abortion and former President Donald Trump‘s temperament but also fragmented media diets.
“You’re going to start hearing a lot more about the man-o-sphere,” Longwell said on the Playbook Deep Dive podcast Friday.
Longwell, who is also the executive director of Republicans Voters Against Trump, said that the gender gap becomes more prominent the younger the voters are, especially among 18- to 29-year-olds.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris (left), then a senator from California, speaks during a debate on October 7, 2020, in Salt Lake City. Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump (right) speaks during a debate on June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. Voters seem to be divided by gender lines when it comes to who they are voting for this election.
AP Photo/File
“The gender gap is not nearly as big in people that are 65 years old,” Longwell said, “but it is enormous among young people.”
The media personalities each gender is attracted to is playing a large role, she said.
“Men and women live in a different news environment,” Longwell said. “They just get their information from different places.”
Longwell runs focus groups to learn about voter behaviors and has recognized a “range of men-influencers” in the podcast realm, such as Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan and Andrew Tate, who are influencing these men.
“They tend to be not apolitical but just not particularly political, and as a result, they have enormous cultural influence,” Longwell said. “When they start talking about politics, they often are very against…woke. They don’t like cancel culture or language policing. They’re usually pro-choice men and they have more socially liberal values, which is actually one of Trump’s big strengths with young men.”
Longwell said Trump has been able to “fuse” old-school conservative ideas of fiscal conservatives, pro-life, Christians, together with “a barstool sports bro coalition that is pro-choice, culturally fine with gay marriage or whatever but doesn’t like all of the woke stuff.” She called this a strength that “feels like it ought to be not capable of happening.”
A lot of Trump’s appeal is that he’s rich and the young men aspire to be as well and “get away with things.” Black men specifically believe Trump understands what it means to have the police come after him in an unjust way, Longwell said.
Longwell also noted that people like Trump and recent allies Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard were all Democrats, creating a “socially liberal” agenda to “completely scramble the coalitions in this country.”
A Harvard Institute of Politics survey of more than 2,000 young adults between September 4 and 16 showed Vice President Kamala Harris holding a 17-point lead among young men compared to Trump.
A Morning Joe panel said a few days ago that Harris’ struggle to get endorsements from the International Association of Fire Fighters or the International Brotherhood of Teamsters shows her struggle with male voters. Journalist Jonathan Lemire called it “reflective of what is becoming a growing concern among Democrats and the Harris campaign.”
Harris has shown stronger performance with female voters in recent polling, particularly among younger women, while Trump has performed better among male voters. MSNBC co-host Joe Scarborough said that the Harris campaign needed to do more to reach out to that group.
The New York Times/Siena poll from Tuesday found Trump leading among male voters by 11 points. Among the demographic, 42 percent said Trump’s policies helped them personally. Trump won the demographic by 2 points in 2020.
Harris’ campaign is seemingly looking to regain the male vote as vice presidential nominee Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota sat down with ABC Good Morning America‘s Michael Strahan as well as delivering a pep talk to Mankato West High School’s football team on Friday.
“I’m worried this is going to become a boy versus girl election,” Longwell said. “And that we’re going to move into an environment where the biggest voting indicator is no longer going to be education or geography, it’s simply going to be gender.”
The female voters are listening to podcasts like true crime talks as well as Call Her Daddy, a show that Harris appeared on this week.
Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, are “actively repelling women,” Longwell said, adding that the Republican ticket has “given up” on female voters and is leaning on the turnout of male voters in November.
“The biggest thing Trump could do to get more women to vote for him is not talk at all,” Longwell said. “His campaign knows this. They could take away his phone and send him to the golf course.”
Some women, however, are still voting for Trump, especially those who are “acutely aware of how inflation has changed the grocery bill,” so they will be “voting on the economy the same way men do,” Longwell said. That said, women are more often “in tune” with health care as an issue politically.
Longwell also noted that white, working-class women are voting for Harris at a higher rate than they did for President Joe Biden. This, however, is not the case for white, working-class men, who are “breaking for Donald Trump very hard.”
“It makes me worry about the propagation of the species of this country because men and women, that gap between how they vote, is becoming almost untenably wide,” Longwell said. “However, the downside to that strategy is there are more women and there are more women who vote.”
