Democrats believe they’re making progress after Trump’s gains with young men helped him win in 2024. Republicans say they’re focused on ensuring those inconsistent voters turn out.
Winning the hearts and minds of young men has been at the center of politics over the past year. Republicans sought to cement Donald Trump’s gains, while Democrats, fearing they could lose an increasingly disaffected segment of the electorate for a generation, launched a series of initiatives to prevent that.
Ahead of next year’s midterms, some Democrats say the momentum is shifting. High-profile Democrats running in last month’s elections — Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Zohran Mamdani in New York City — improved on the party’s poor performance among young men one year before.
Some 2028 Democratic presidential contenders launched policy initiatives aimed at men and boys. And in Trump’s first year in office, many young men say they feel a continued economic and social malaise, cutting into his support with that key group.
These types of guys are reflexively contrarian. They are only motivated to vote by performatively anti-establishment candidates. They voted for Trump, but they also would have voted for Bernie. The GOP is going to lose these votes when Trump isn’t on the ballot, but Democrats won’t pick many of them up unless they start running more populists candidates like Mamdani.
I don’t think it’s reflexively contrarian as much as dissatisfied and reactionary. Things aren’t great and they’ll vote for anyone who says they’ll change things (e.g., Trump and Bernie) and against anyone who says things are just fine the way they are (any DNC bobble head).
Friend’s brother was like this during the 2016 elections, he absolutely would have voted for Bernie, but after the DNC prioritizing Hillary, he either didn’t vote, or voted from Trump, not sure which. There is truth to the contrarian angle to this. If they feel they’re being manipulated one way too hard, they’ll vote the other way out of spite, or not vote out of spite. And they don’t care about the effects, they’ll take an accerationist angle, stating the whole system has to come down, so it might as well happen sooner than later.