Pac-News reporter Peter Hamby said Thursday that the Democratic Party's advantage with young men has been “completely lost” as former President Trump has successfully appealed to Gen Z with his “macho brand.”
CNN anchor Dana Bash, who hosted a segment on the gender gap between men's support for Trump and women's support for Vice President Kamala Harris, called out Hamby's article in particular. “The Swift-Logan Election” Pay attention to this phenomenon.
“Can you name any Democrats who could go on popular media like Trump, the Nerk Boys, Theo Von, Joe Rogan and defend Harris? Bernie Sanders has done it a few times and it made no difference,” Hamby wrote, in quotes highlighted by Bash. “Waltz himself could go on 'New Heights' or 'Pardon My Take' with the Kelsey brothers and talk football… but again, I'm not convinced that would make any meaningful difference in the Gen Z bro vote at this point.”
Hamby argued that while Democratic candidates have generally been able to retain young voters in the past, it says a lot that Harris lost young male voters compared to her predecessor.
PAC News journalist Peter Hamby spoke on CNN about how former President Trump is winning over young people in ways that Democrats have failed to do in the past, especially in this election.
CNN's Dana Bash argues the Democratic National Convention appeals to men who aren't as “testosterone-fueled”
“At this point, the Gen Z male vote is irretrievable,” he told CNN. “ABC News/Washington Post did a poll last weekend that looks similar to other data I've seen. Harris has a 38-point lead among young women, a big gender gap. She's only about three points ahead of Trump among young men. This trend from 2020 is real. Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were all able to count on young men even as they lost older men. That advantage is now completely gone.”
When asked why this is happening, he argued, “It's partly because of the culture, it's partly because of Trump's macho image, and it's also largely because of the economy.” He also pointed out that compared to a few years ago, the college enrollment rate for young men has declined, and their participation in the workforce has been delayed.
“Then on top of that, you have anti-wokeness, pronoun issues, appealing to young men, and then you have Donald Trump playing golf with Bryson DeChambeau, appearing on Theo Von's show, talking about ZYN,” Hamby added.
The Democratic Party, he argued, had failed to appeal to young men in the same way.
“And the Democratic Party, unfortunately, hasn't had a cool male candidate in a while,” he said, adding that while Walz may appeal to men, many of them are the type of male voters who already vote Democratic and wear “The Future is Female” shirts.
Former President Trump recently appeared on Fox News Channel's “Gutfeld!” (Fox News Channel)
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Bash noted that the Harris campaign hasn't given up on young men entirely, running “white guys supporting Harris” ads that are being used in a $10 million ad buy across digital platforms.
Maeve Reston, national political reporter for The Washington Post, noted that the ad focuses on economic issues in a way that appeals to young men, but citing her own experience on the ground, said, “It was really shocking to look around the crowd at her rallies and see how many women there were.”
Reston said it was hard to find men to talk to at Harris' rallies, because “there were a lot of guys with their wives wearing 'The Future is Female' shirts. But there was no curious onlooker at the end of the hall checking out Harris, like at, say, Obama's campaigns.”
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“There's a saying that white men are not a monolith,” Hamby said. “White men in the suburbs of Philadelphia may be more concerned with crime. That's why Kamala Harris is struggling in Pennsylvania; she has lower approval ratings among suburban, college-educated white men than Biden did in 2020.”
Wisconsin is a different story, he argued, with white men there voting for the type of guy who wears a shirt that says, “The Future is Female.” College-educated white men in places like Madison tend to vote Democrat by “North Korean margins,” he said.
“Each state has a different set of voters,” he added. “The race is very close and each state is very different.”
