Trump’s “Bro Vote” Strategy is Why He Will Lose Badly
The data 100% backs this up!
Donald Trump apparently gets that women aren’t going vote for the guy who is an adjudicated rapist and who was “honored” to strip women of the constitutional right to reproductive freedom. It didn’t help that Trump’s hand-picked running mate JD Vance has mocked women without children as “childless cat ladies” and agreed that the primary role of post-menopausal women is to help raise other people’s children. Consequently, Vice President Harris is crushing Trump when it comes to the support of female voters--especially in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania which shows Harris with 55% of the support of women to Trump’s 41%.
It's so bad for Trump that as Politico reported Friday, the Trump campaign has “given up on the idea that they can get women.” That is why Trump’s new strategy to counter the strong support of women for Harris is to court the “bro vote”--which is young men who are primarily (but not exclusively) white. As Politico notes, “Trump is betting that support from young men will help propel him to the White House.”
To that end, Trump has appeared on podcasts that attract a large audience of young men—as we saw this week with his appearance on a podcast hosted by several male comedians. Although that appearance didn’t go as well as Trump had hoped because the headline from it was that one of the co-hosts, comedian Andrew Schulz, literally laughed in Trumps’ face when Trump declared that he’s, “basically a truthful person” (The photo on top of this article captures that very moment.)
But here’s the spoiler: If Trump is counting on young men to come out in big numbers to save him from the power of female voters, he has already lost.
Before I get into the data, let’s be brutally honest. We all know young men-in fact, I used to be one. No group of people is less reliable than young dudes who are 18 to mid 20’s. Sure, there are exceptions, but as a group, young men are the easiest to distract, least focused people I know. They may tell Trump campaign workers they will vote, but if there is a big game on TV, or someone brings over some weed, a pizza gets delivered, etc., we know what the result will be. They will not stop having fun to get off their couch, travel to the voting location, stand on a line and cast a ballot.
The data backs this up. In the 2020 presidential election, guess who came out to vote more: Young women or men? You know the answer. Fifty five percent of young women cast a ballot compared to just 44% of young men—as documented by Tufts University Center that studies “Youth Voting and Civic Engagement in America.” In fact, that gender gap of 11% more women voting was “true for every racial/ethnic group for which we have reliable data,” as Tufts noted.
And it gets worse for Trump. If men and women of all ages turned out to vote in the same percentages, the similar gender gaps we are seeing with Trump leading men and Harris leading women would in essence cancel themselves out. But as the data tells us, that has not been the case for decades.
As Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics has detailed, “In every presidential election since 1980, the proportion of eligible female adults who voted has exceeded the proportion of eligible male adults who voted.” In fact, more women are registered to vote than men. As a result, women make up a bigger chunk of the electorate.
For example, in the 2020 election, women accounted for 54.7% of the electorate while men only accounted for 44%--as a recent deep dive by Brookings on this issue documented. If this holds true in 2024, with Trump losing women in area of 16 to 20 points in recent polls—and women voting in bigger numbers then men—Trump is in big trouble.
Brookings went even further and did the math (Yes, I’m sorry there will be math involved.) They applied the 2020 election turnout results to the 2024 polling numbers on gender support for each candidate. As to the key state of Pennsylvania, Brookings noted, “In a recent Marist poll, women supported Harris by 55% to 43% for Trump, while men supported Harris by 44% and Trump by 54%.” Again, if both men and women voted in same percentages this would be a wash.
But in the 2020 election in Pennsylvania, women accounted for 53% of the electorate while men were 47%. Brookings explained given that, “If the gender gap in presidential preference in 2024 was applied to 2020 turnout numbers, Harris should win Pennsylvania by 114,794 votes or 1.69%.” They added, “In fact, in 2020, Biden won the state by 1.2% or 81,660 votes.”
What about the all-important state of Michigan you ask? Brookings explains that a recent Marist poll finds 56% of the women currently favor Harris. Looking back at the 2020 election, the Michigan electorate was 54% women and 46% men. Thus, “applying the 2024 presidential preference to 2020 turnout results in a Harris win of 321,280 or 5.92%. (In 2020, Biden won the state by three percent or 154,188 votes.) Brookings projected similar results in Wisconsin, Nevada and North Carolina.
As opposed to Trump who has gone full “toxic masculinity” and written off attracting more women voters, Harris is still working hard to attract male voters. In fact, on Friday, Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, kicked off a campaign to secure more male voters that includes new ads and interviews in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin focused on hunting and high school football. In addition, the Harris campaign recently roll out endorsements by Hall of Fame athletes.
There’s something else at play here that undermines Trump’s “Bro-vote” strategy. The women voting for Harris are not casting a ballot for simply a politician. Many of them are casting a ballot for Harris in the effort to protect their own self-determination. They don’t want Republicans like Trump, JD Vance etc., passing a national law that would force them to carry a fetus against their will. They want to make those type of personal health decisions based on what is right for each of them.
In contrast, where is the skin in the game for the young “bros” Trump is courting?! To them it’s nothing more than rooting for a favorite sports team.
I would predict the percentage of women who will vote in 2024 will eclipse what we saw in 2020 given this is the first presidential election since Trump/GOP Supreme Court ended Roe v. Wade. It’s actually fitting that women will be leading the charge to defeat Trump—the avatar for misogyny—while making history electing the first female President in our nation’s history.
Most likely, Madame President Harris will be the Woman of the Year... and 2025 will be the Year of Women... (and the men who endorse, defend and care about them)!
For starters.
Trump’s a constant liar whose lies deliberately hurt people. He targets people. He lives to create chaos.
On his way out after he lost the election and wasn’t President any more he took 30+ boxes of the nation’s secrets out of the secure National Archives to a public golf course where he had them stored carelessly and haphazardly.
He brags about ending Roe v. Wade.
His apparently ongoing friendship or bromance with Putin.
He gives every appearance of having some sort of dementia.
That’s only a little bit of the endless list of reasons to vote for Harris.