Young American men do not have a long list of Democratic leaders they view as masculine, in fact, there really seems to be only one name on it.
A recent analysis of young men aged 18 to 29 by the think tank Third Way stated that most of the participants “struggle to name masculine leaders within the Democratic Party, outside of [former President] Barack Obama.” Respondents recognized the Republican Party as the most masculine, and the party that best represented the interests of men.
“The [Republican] party generally tends to put itself towards supporting the nuclear family,” one respondent, identified as a young black man, said in the study. “One I mean, like I said, I’m a father. I’m a husband … you really can’t get better at leadership and integrity than having to raise a family. And the Republican Party does do that very well.”
Many men in Third Way’s focus groups pointed to affordability and the ability to support a family as major influences on their vote. They claimed that Trump was an active leader on social and economic issues, while Harris and other Democrats did not have reliable economic plans, instead focusing on transgenderism and other cultural phenomena.
“[Harris] talked a lot about the whole cultural thing,” one respondent, also identified as a young black man, said. “But she didn’t really address… the prices of everything going up that was actually going to change my day-to-day life… too much focus on cultural inclusivity and not [making] our lives as civilians a but more tolerable.”
The study used three focus groups of “soft Trump supporting young black, Latino, and non-college white men” from the seven battleground states between the ages of 18 and 29. Third Way said the men in their study tended to be less focused on ideology, low-propensity voters and less likely to consume political news.
Third Way is a self-described center-left think tank widely associated with the Democratic Party’s moderate wing.
Lucas Holtz, a political analyst at the think tank, wrote that the findings of its focus groups “should give pause to anyone who wants to beat back the MAGA forces.”
Democrats launched the $20-million-dollar project Speaking with American Men (SAM) project in the aftermath of the election to learn how to regain the male electorate. Last month, SAM’s initial round of research discovered that many young men view the Democratic Party as “weak” and the Republican Party as “strong.” Male voters left the Biden bandwagon in 2024, with 48% supporting his 2020 campaign and only 42% supporting Harris’ 2024 presidential bid, according to an analysis by Democratic firm Catalist.
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