Among the many story lines of the 2024 election, the emergence of young male voters as an important voting bloc is at the top of the list. While TBI is non-partisan, having young men’s votes matter raises the likelihood of young men’s issues by all parties, something that TBI supports.
One reason this became a top narrative is that the trend globally is that young men are becoming more associated with the political right. In the US, the Republican Party seized on this, courting young men as part of a successful strategy to capture the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives in Washington, DC – a clean sweep. All young voters have typically leaned left, but that has changed. In 2020, Biden won among men aged 18-29, whereas in 2024, current exit polls indicate Trump won that group by about 2 points.*
As this trend became apparent during the campaign season, a group of Democrats formed an organization called the Young Men’s Research Initiative. Among other findings, this group noted that Republicans outspent Democrats 10:1 in Pennsylvania in ads targeting young men. A post-election webinar detailed that the way that young male voters get information has changed – it now largely comes from social media and podcasts, not traditional media.
TBI Advisor Dr. Warren Farrell penned an op-ed in The Kansas City Star “Trump won because Democrats keep telling young men they’re dangerous and don’t matter” and points out the culture that boys have grown up in over the last 20 years has affected their feelings about politics and government. His article focuses on many of the cultural and personal challenges young men face, and how the Democrats ignored them. Author of the seminal book The Boy Crisis, Farrell recounts young men telling him that growing up hearing about how “the future is female” and “toxic masculinity” was mirrored by Democrating leaders blaming men if they didn’t vote for the female candidate in 2024.
One new voice from the Gen Z crowd is Dean Withers, a 20 year-old from Colorado who grew up conservative but is now loudly liberal. A participant in several high-profile debates, including one in which he debated 20 conservatives, his TikTok following has grown to 2 million. Withers was also featured in a recent article in GQ Magazine. Like Greta Thurnberg became a young face of the environmental movement, could Withers become a face of a new young men’s movement on the left?
Now that the election is finished, the next question is how will both major parties address young men’s issues in practice. Acknowledging the importance of the young male vote is one thing, enacting policies to support their needs around finances, jobs, education, health, mental health, and overall well-being is another.
*An interesting data note: if you search the 2020 exit poll data, almost never is it broken down by both gender and age; the fact that this data is readily available for 2024 is yet another indicator of the importance of gender in the 2024 election and more broadly in our culture.