New findings from the Democrats’ costly and widely panned Speaking with American Men (SAM) project found that many young men view the party as “weak” while seeing the Republicans as “strong,” Politico reported on Wednesday.
An initial round of research from SAM — first reported by Politico — showed that many young men think that “neither party has our back,” as one black man from Georgia said in a focus group. SAM is a new $20 million initiative aiming to study how Democrats can better connect with young male voters they lost in the 2024 election cycle, according to The New York Times.
Some participants said they viewed the Democratic Party as cautious, but viewed the GOP as more confident, Politico reported.
The research “reaffirms what young men already think, that Democrats don’t want to invest in you,” Ilyse Hogue, a co-founder of the Speaking with American Men project, told Politico. Hogue is a well-known left-wing feminist activist who served as president of NARAL Pro-Choice America for eight years.
Hogue also told Politico that many young male voters believe the Democratic Party does not “care” about them.
“Democrats are seen as weak, whereas Republicans are seen as strong,” Hogue told the outlet. “Young men also spoke of being invisible to the Democratic coalition, and so you’ve got this weak problem and then you’ve got this, ‘I don’t think they care about me’ problem, and I think the combination is kind of a killer.”
One focus group participant described Democrats as embracing “the fluid masculinity of being, like, empathetic and sensitive,” while “Republicans are more like, the traditional masculinity of a provider, strong, and the machismo type,” Politico reported.
In the 2024 presidential election, male voters significantly shifted towards the Republican Party. An analysis from Democratic firm Catalist found that while 55% of women continued to support former Vice President Kamala Harris at about the same levels that they supported former President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, male voters shifted towards President Donald Trump in 2024, from 48% support for Biden in 2020 to 42% support for Harris in 2024.
Hogue told Politico that Democrats will not be able to win over voters unless they are “speaking the language that young men are speaking.”
“Democrats can’t win these folks over if they’re not speaking the language that young men are speaking,” Hogue told Politico.
Republicans have widely criticized SAM with House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain in a May X post likening the expensive initiative to the Democrats lighting “$20 million on fire to study their unpopularity.”
Republican Arizona Rep. Abe Hamadeh similarly blasted SAM on X in May.
“The Democrats declared war on masculinity and lost a generation of young men,” Hamadeh wrote. “Instead of doing any introspection as to what they did wrong, they’re going to invest $20 million studying ‘male Syntax’ to try to better communicate their radical message.”
The Democratic Party has been reportedly strategizing about the best way to reconnect with voters following the GOP winning control of the White House and both houses of Congress in November 2024.
Some Democrats have recently criticized their own party’s brand. In May, Rahm Emanuel, an ex-Obama White House chief of staff criticized the Democratic Party brand as being “weak and woke.”
Still, Ross Morales Rocketto, a Democratic strategist who is not involved in the SAM project, told Politico that part of Democrats’ current messaging problem is that many young men think that “the Democratic Party doesn’t really like or respect them.”
“The Democratic Party is missing that we’re not going to be able to message our way out of these deep problems men are facing, starting with the fact that they know the Democratic Party doesn’t really like or respect them,” Rocketto said. “It’s really easy for Republicans to play off the politics of grievance.”
SAM could not immediately be reached for comment.
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