By Ajay Kumar 
Photo Credit: New York Times
The 2024 United States presidential election has come and gone. After a long, arduous campaign by both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, the American people have spoken. Former President Donald Trump has been elected as the 47th President of the United States, becoming the first president to win non-consecutive terms since Grover Cleveland in 1892.
President-elect Trump won every key battleground state and became the first Republican to win the popular vote since 2004, capping an improbable political comeback not seen before in American history. Naturally, Americans on both sides of the aisle have questions as to how Trump was able to secure such an emphatic result. Look no further than the impact of young men in this election cycle. President-elect Trump was able to garner significant levels of support among young men.
According to an NBC News exit poll, President-elect Trump was able to win support from 49% of men ages 18-29 in ten key battleground states. This is extremely significant when you consider that polling data from before the election showed President-elect Trump generating support from 38% of this demographic. Additionally, this shift towards the right is even more significant when you consider that President Joe Biden was able to generate support from 56% of male voters ages 18-29. There is much speculation as to why this hard shift to the right occurred among young men. Some outlets argue that the Democratic Party’s emphasis on identity politics generated a coalition that alienated younger men. In response, younger men shifted to the right and punished the party for a lack of messaging regarding issues salient to them.
Others argue that younger men prioritized pocketbook issues such as inflation and the state of the economy. Evidence for pocketbook voting is largely seen in exit polling data. According to a CNN exit poll, 81% of voters who stated that their family’s financial situation is worse than it was four years ago, pledged support for President-elect Trump.
There is a case to make that campaign strategy played a role in driving younger men to the right. The Trump campaign specifically focused on online messaging to target younger men. Notably, Trump made several appearances on podcasts with a young, mostly male audience.
While it is impossible to predict whether or not these podcast appearances had any sort of major effect on the young male turnout for Trump, it is hard to deny the extensive reach these appearances had. Trump’s appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, for example, generated 49 million views on YouTube. Moreover, his appearance on Theo Von’s This Past Weekend generated 14 million views on the platform.
In contrast, Vice President Harris’ appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast, a podcast targeted primarily at young women, only generated 860,000 views on YouTube. When presented with a similar opportunity to appear on the Joe Rogan Experience, the Harris campaign declined citing logistical issues with Rogan wanting to record the episode at his Austin studio, opting instead to appear on the final episode of Saturday Night Live (SNL) before the election. At first, Trump’s appearances on these podcasts may be seen as trivial. However, there is a clear strategic reason for these appearances. Young men are among the least likely demographics to vote in any election, presidential or midterm. By appearing in spaces where young men congregate, Trump was able to market himself and his policy proposals to a group of voters largely ambivalent to the idea of voting and potentially energize this demographic into voting for him. Trump has largely been successful in marketing himself as a “man’s man”, and this was evidenced further in the content of these podcast episodes. In Theo Von’s This Past Weekend, the episode largely refrained from discussing policy. Instead, it focused on topics that were seen as relatable or salient to young men such as UFC fighters and struggles with addiction. It is impossible to state whether Vice President Harris’ appearances on these podcasts would have swung the election in her favor.
However, appearances on these podcasts would have most likely denied Trump a strategic advantage in being the only candidate to appear on these shows. Given that 61% of women ages 18-29 in key battleground states supported Harris, appearances on podcasts and shows targeted at this demographic like Call Her Daddy and SNL likely did not expand support among this demographic as she had already had it in the first place.
Younger male voters have significantly shifted to the right. As Generation Z’s impact on electoral outcomes increases, it is expected that both parties will now pay attention to a demographic largely gone unnoticed in previous cycles. Democrats will have to shift their campaign strategy and messaging to win back a demographic they once enjoyed comfortable support with. While Republicans will have to continue to expand their newly acquired Gen Z voter base to ensure future electoral victories.