Everyone expected this to be the gender election.
Although Kamala Harris didn’t go hard on the “let’s elect a female president” messaging, she did make abortion rights a central part of her campaign. Her team also leaned into the very feminine flurry of excitement that followed her nomination—remember “brat”?
As Oliver Wiseman wrote back in July, “Up against Kamala the Brat, we have Trump the Macho Man”—getting excited about rocket ships, bringing Hulk Hogan onto the Republican National Convention stage, and raising his fist after nearly getting shot in the head.
But a wider-than-ever gap between the sexes did not materialize. And we now know that the Republicans’ appeal to men was far more successful than the Democrats’ appeal to women. Here are a few statistics:
The Democrats’ vote share among women actually fell. Harris won 53 percent of female voters this year; Biden won 55 percent in 2020.
Trump, meanwhile, won 46 percent of women this year, up 3 percent from the last time he ran for president.
Trump made modest gains among men, winning 55 percent of them—2 percent more than when he ran in 2020—compared to Harris’s 42 percent.
But he did make insane gains among young men. Male voters under 30 went for Biden by a margin of 15 percent in 2020. This year, they went for Trump by a margin of 13 percent, a whopping 28-point swing.
So in the end, the gender gap between voters wasn’t as big as anticipated—except among young people (but only because young men moved more dramatically to the right than young women, who also shifted towards the Republican Party). Some Democrats have blamed their massive loss on the sexism of American voters. But, as Kat Rosenfield wrote yesterday, “to suggest that Americans balk at the notion of putting women in power is absurd.”
So, what really explains the gender dynamics of the election results?
This afternoon, we bring you two pieces of analysis. Madeleine Kearns explains why the Democrats’ big bet on “reproductive rights” this election cycle didn’t pay off. “Not only was abortion a flop, in the end, it was Republicans who pushed the winning women’s-rights issue,” argues Madeleine. The GOP spent roughly $215 million on political ads targeting Harris’s stance on transgender issues, which flies in the face of women’s rights and is wildly unpopular. Looks like that money paid off.
Meanwhile, River Page argues that Trump’s huge gains among young men happened because he met them where they are: on Joe Rogan’s podcast, on YouTube, on Theo Von’s show. “It’s not just that the Trump campaign bothered to show up on male-centric platforms,” River writes. “It's that they respected the mediums and participated in them fully—both Trump and J.D. Vance went to Joe Rogan’s studio in Austin to sit for a three-hour, winding conversation.” Time well spent.
Scroll down to read Madeleine and River’s analyses. . .
Democrats Picked the Wrong Women’s Rights Issue
It wasn’t abortion that mobilized voters. It was biological males in women’s sports.
Democrats bet big on “reproductive rights” this election cycle, even offering free abortions at their national convention. But the strategy didn’t pay off. Not only was abortion a flop with the electorate, it was Republicans—not Democrats—who pushed the winning women’s-rights issue: fighting the encroachment of biological men into women’s spaces and sports.
“We will get. . . transgender insanity the hell out of our schools, and we will keep men out of women’s sports,” Donald Trump said to roaring applause at his Madison Square Garden rally a week before the election.
It’s easy to understand the Democrats’ thinking. Legalized abortion access has surged in popularity since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. In 2020, half of Americans said it should be legal in all or most cases; by 2024, two-thirds thought so. In the past two years, 11 states approved referendums enshrining permissive abortion laws into their constitutions. Still, in this year’s presidential election, half of the people who say abortion should be “legal in most cases” voted for Trump. Four years earlier, Joe Biden won those same voters by 38 points.
But this dynamic, too, is easy to understand. In the final months of his campaign, Trump had moderated his party’s abortion stance (“leave it to the states”) in a way that satisfied many pro-choice Americans, most of whom aren’t single-issue voters. Yes, he nominated three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe—but that hasn’t been as disruptive as expected. In blue states (where most people are pro-choice), abortion is widely accessible, and at least six states have no gestational limits. In Colorado, for example, you can get late-term abortions because you don’t like the baby’s sex or the father is no longer on the scene. Meanwhile, in red states (where most people are pro-life), you can get the procedure only in a medical emergency, and at least eight states have no exceptions for rape and incest. Even if you’re a minor.
While Harris and Co. argued Trump was hell-bent on signing a federal abortion ban, he consistently denied that claim, noting that he’d veto one if Congress passed it. His administration “will be great for women and their reproductive rights,” he added on Truth Social. His wife, Melania, released a memoir saying a woman has a “fundamental right” to “terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.” And, after he was chosen as Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, a Catholic convert, moved away from his restrictionist rhetoric on abortion and said he supported access to mifepristone, the drug used to induce medical abortions through 10 weeks’ gestation.
During the vice-presidential debate, Vance also told the story of a pregnant female friend, from his childhood neighborhood in Ohio, who’d been in an abusive relationship and “felt like if she hadn’t had that abortion, that it would have destroyed her life.” He added that, as a Republican “who proudly wants to protect innocent life,” his party needs to do “a better job” of winning back “trust” on reproductive issues. He stressed that the GOP should be “pro-family in the fullest sense of the word,” including giving women better access to fertility treatments, and making it easier for mothers to afford babies and young families to pay for a home.
Trump’s move to the center upset his pro-life base. But it didn’t upset their decision to vote for him. Trump correctly calculated that he could afford to offend such voters because they would never choose Harris over him. In 2020, as a senator, Harris went so far as to vote against the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which required medical providers to “preserve the life and health” of a child who survives an abortion procedure with the same professionalism as one “born alive at the same gestational age.” Asked in the final days of the race whether she would offer any concessions on the issue—say, exempting Catholic hospitals from performing abortions—Harris said she wouldn’t “be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body.” Even when asked if there should be term limits on abortion—a simple question that should have been easy to answer—Harris refused multiple times to take a stand.
Harris’s lack of clarity or compromise on abortion had a stunning effect: In 2020, Trump had a 45-point lead over Biden among voters who say abortion should be “illegal in most cases.” This year he won them by 85 points.
Meanwhile, the Republicans adopted a pro-woman stance that resonated widely with the electorate: a ban on male transgender athletes participating in female sports. And they pushed a pro-parent policy, too: barring “gender-affirming care” for distressed minors.
Continue reading Madeleine Kearns on which women’s issue really mobilized voters…
Trump’s Podcast Offensive Worked
Will Kamala’s refusal to go on Joe Rogan’s podcast be remembered like Hillary not visiting Wisconsin before the election?
By River Page
Early Wednesday morning, as Donald Trump declared victory, he invited Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White onstage during his speech. “This is what happens when the machine comes after you,” White boomed, sounding like he was teeing up a cage match. “This is karma, ladies and gentlemen!”
Why exactly, on the eve of one of the biggest political comebacks in American history, was the man responsible for mainlining mixed martial arts to the mainstream given top billing?
After congratulating Trump and his family, White gave a shout-out to a motley crew of men: Twitch streamer Adin Ross, the YouTube collective called Nelk Boys, plus podcasters Theo Von and Joe Rogan—all media that either Trump or J.D. Vance appeared on this election season. With the exception of Rogan, these names might be unfamiliar to many Americans, but not young American men.
None of these podcasts or streams are inherently political, and neither is the UFC. They are not right-wing media, in any traditional sense of the word. They are, though, the young male mainstream, representing a large but silent minority—one ignored by politicians at best and demonized at worst.
Each program in this system differs a bit: The Nelk Boys started out as a prank show on YouTube, Adin Ross plays video games, and Von has a successful stand-up career. Rogan is rather thoughtful, while Ross and the Nelk Boys are more interested in making the audience laugh. The Barstool Media Universe, presided over by Dave Portnoy, has a loose sports focus. What they all have in common though is that they involve men talking, mostly to other men, off the cuff. The audience doesn’t view them as journalists or thought leaders, but rather as para-social friends. They have natural, long-winded conversations that could go anywhere. It’s like hanging out—in a way.
I’m a 28-year-old man, and it’s virtually impossible to not encounter this media ecosystem, particularly if you’re online, whether through YouTube's suggestion algorithm or as clips on TikTok. The fact that most streamers comment on the news, but don’t focus on it incessantly, is a reprieve from the 24-hour news cycle.
Several months ago, left-wing Twitch streamer Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker went on the liberal podcast Pod Save America. Twitch is a video platform where people stream themselves for hours, often while playing video games, and Piker is one of the most popular streamers there. He admitted on the podcast that his program was an outlier when it comes to politics. “If you’re a dude under 30 and you have any hobbies whatsoever—playing video games, working out, listening to a history podcast or whatever—[it] is completely dominated by center-right to Trumpian right-wing politics.”
That shouldn’t be a shock. Increasingly, every male interest, from going to the gym, apparently a fascist recruiting ground, to playing video games is decried as right-wing by the left. If you tell young men that everything they like is right wing, you shouldn’t be surprised when they start to believe you.
Keep reading River Page on how Trump met young men where they are…
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Makes me miss the Lincoln Douglas Debates. Or Firing Line with William F. Buckley; or heck, just The Phil Donahue Show. A bit ironic that much of social media actually brings us “less” information about candidates, not more (with the exception of podcasts and long form Substack). Seems rather by design, too.
Remember, the Dark Ages were dark in purpose.
While all interesting and largely true, the analysis completely misses Harris' total lack of 'gravitas'. Word-salads, cackling/giggling, hiding....had to really turn off a lot of people. Even if you think he's The Devil and lying, Trump's Rogan hours showed someone who was willing to talk and interact, showing his position on many topics. A real person. Even if Harris' campaign got the message right, the Dems really picked the wrong candidate.