Harris's struggles with young men raise alarms for Democrats

Vice President Harris’s polling with young men is raising alarm bells for Democrats as the campaign works to keep cracks from forming in the party’s coalition less than two weeks out from Election Day.

The gender divide has been a glaring issue for both campaigns, as women tack toward Harris and men turn to former President Trump. But while Harris boasts a big edge among young voters broadly, her polling with young men, particularly young men of color, could create an opening for Trump.

“It’s extremely serious,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist who co-founded the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. “If Donald Trump wins, this is how he wins.”

A Yale University poll this month found Harris led Trump among both young men and women, but while she led by a substantial 32 points among female registered voters under 30, she led by just around 5 points among male voters in the same age bracket.

This fall’s Harvard Youth Poll, published last month, also found Harris had the edge with young voters broadly, but while she had a whopping 47-point edge among likely female voters under 30, she was just 17 points up among their male counterparts.

The trend can also be seen among young Black and Latino men, two critical groups in the Democratic coalition. A GenForward survey released this week found that nearly a quarter of young Black men say they are backing Trump, while 44 percent of young Latino men said the same.

A report published Tuesday by the left-leaning think tank Data for Progress found that young women sided with Harris by a 37-point margin, but young men were evenly split, with 48 percent for Harris and 48 percent for Trump.

Harris’s allies note that the campaign is still generally leading with the demographic, though they acknowledge that they also must continues reaching it. Last week, they launched a series of ads on Yahoo Sports and the sports betting platform DraftKings, aimed specifically at young male voters, as well as gaming sites like IGN and Fandom. The campaign has also taken advantage of advertising during major sporting events.

Harris and her running mate Tim Walz have also worked to reach the demographic through interviews. Last week, Harris sat down with radio host Charlamagne Tha God, while Walz sat down with sports commentator Rich Eisen.

However, strategists note that the trend of young men moving away from Democrats started long before Harris became the party’s presidential nominee three months ago.

A Harvard Youth Poll released in April showed Biden leading Trump by six points among young men. At the same point in the 2020 election, Biden was leading Trump by 26 points with the group.

“This is part of a broader dynamic, a bigger trend that we’ve noticed and we’ve been watching for a longer time than both candidates have been on the national scene,” Madrid said.

In fact, there were signs of younger men moving away from Democrats as far back as 2012. In 2008, former president Obama won 62 percent of 18- to 29-year-old men, while the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) carried 35 percent of the group. Four years later, Obama won 53 percent of the group and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) carried 42 percent of the group.

“There’s lots of data to suggest that young women and men are differentiating themselves in some important political ways,” said Melissa Deckman, CEO of the nonpartisan research firm PRRI and the author of “The Politics of Gen Z: How the Youngest Voters Will Shape Our Democracy.”

Women of all age groups have appeared to grow more likely to identify as liberal in recent decades, according to Pew Research. They’re also registered to vote at higher rates than men, and more likely to turn out, according to data from The Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers.

The growing liberal identification among young women has been a major driver of that divide, Decker said, as they’re energized by threats against reproductive rights and turned off by Trump’s comments on women, among other issues. But the new polling also suggests young men may be increasingly likely to vote Republican this election cycle.

“Whether Trump is able to make inroads into a majority of young men, that’ll be notable. But I do think that that’s possible,” Deckman said, adding that the Trump campaign has been “pretty smart” in its approach to young men ahead of November.

The Trump campaign has leaned into “themes about masculinity” in their efforts, Deckman said, pointing to Trump’s appearances on podcasts popular with young men, and his attendance at Ultimate Fighting Championship events.

Democrats, on the other hand, have appeared “behind the curve” when it comes to reaching the demographic, Deckman said, even as Harris sees a swell of Gen Z and millennial support.

Harris has given Democrats a notable jolt of energy with young voters, who had appeared more apathetic about President Biden, since taking over the party ticket — leaning into TikTok and online enthusiasm. But Democrats’ focus broadly has appeared trained on young women, Deckman said. Harris made a notable recent appearance on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, popular with young women.

“There is an ongoing fight about masculinity in America today and the future of masculinity and I think Democrats as a whole have not done a great job of engaging in that fight and I think we need to do a better job of elevating voices that can go have those tough conversations in spaces where those people are,” said Mike Nellis, a Democratic strategist involved in the outside group “White Dudes for Harris.”

Strategists also note that there is room for Democrats to improve their standing among young Black and Latino men in particular.

“The vice president still has room to grow with various constituencies including young men, especially young men of color,” said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist.

“Part of the disconnect is we may not have spent enough time to this point cultivating and grooming the relationship and showing them the direct correlation between policy and pushing out their vote,” he said, noting that he does not think Trump has any “connective tissue” with young men of color.

Madrid noted that young men, including young Latino men, have been attracted to more populist ideas, but said Harris has been working to course-correct.

“There’s a strong appeal with populist candidates,” he said. “She is talking about more populist policy proposals. She’s got her own tax-on-tips policy proposal. She’s got a very aggressive housing plan. She’s talking about an opportunity economy.”

“She’s moving her party back to becoming a working-class party,” he added.

Experts say the gender divide doesn’t yet spell disaster for Democrats. One critical caveat is that polling can get sparse when it’s broken down by age and then by race or gender, making the numbers less than certain. Another is that liberal identification, even though it's higher among young women than young men, is still higher among young men compared to older men.

“I think sometimes what gets lost in the sauce is that young men are still more progressive than other generations,” said Kelly Dittmar, a Rutgers University political scientist and scholar at CAWP.

But since Harris has the overall Gen Z edge, it will come down to whether Trump’s support among young men is “enough to stem that advantage,” Dittmar said.

“It’ll come down to: who actually comes out? And is there any disparity there? And history would tell us that women are, in every election, the most reliable voters, across age groups and race,” Dittmar said. "If that continues to be the case, then this might not be enough for [Trump] to cut the [Harris] advantage among this particular generational group.”