It’s a perfect fall day in late October when Donald Trump is greeted in Greenville, North Carolina. It’s the leaves’ turn, brilliant red poking through the sea of ​​green.

Red also accentuates the waiting crowd, with the recognizable MAGA cap proudly displayed by many people in line and particularly popular among young men.

One of them is 23-year-old Jack Lawrence, who is excited to see Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in person, a man he describes as “strong, charismatic, empathetic.”

He is aligned with Trump on the issues important to him, citing immigration and the economy. But for Jack, Trump’s appeal goes beyond his policies.

He says masculinity has been put on the back burner by Democrats.

“(Trump promises) to bring back the masculine face that you saw in American men in the 1960s and 1970s,” he says.

“Just strong men who take care of their families and can just be men and not be pressured, as the left is really trying to push right now.”

Jack says he grew up in a small town, about an hour’s drive from Greenville, with “Christian values.” He is now studying construction management at East Carolina University, which he says is “definitely a more conservative-leaning school than liberal.”

He also believes that the polls underestimate Trump’s support. “There are a lot more people who are afraid to express their opinions than you actually think,” he says, because previously they were “hated just for their political beliefs.”

Battle of the sexes

Trump’s increasing appeal to young men could ultimately become one of the defining subplots of this campaign.

Throughout his political career, he has marketed himself as a fighter and a tough guy.

He has attended wrestling and mixed martial arts (MMA) fights during his 2024 presidential campaign.

At the Republican National Convention, where Trump officially accepted his party’s nomination, he had former wrestling star Hulk Hogan as one of the speakers.

When he spoke to the women of America, he promised to be their “protector.”

And one of his surrogates, former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, recently described Trump as “daddy” and painted a vivid picture of him returning to the White House to give a wayward daughter a beating.

“When daddy comes home, you know what he says?” Carlson asked the audience at an event hosted by Turning Point USA, an organization that promotes conservative politics on school and college campuses.

“You’ve been a bad girl, you’ve been a bad little girl and now you’re going to get a good spanking.”

In what may be the closest election in modern American history, Trump is hoping he can get a notoriously unreliable voting bloc — young men — off the bench and into the voting booths to put him back in the White House.

There is a noticeable shift in the muddy data

To appeal to non-traditional voters, Trump’s campaign knew their candidate had to meet them where they were.

Rather than focusing solely on interviews with mainstream broadcasters, Trump has instead looked to podcasters, YouTubers and influencers who have millions of young, male followers.

He invited online pranksters the Nelk Boys onto his plane and appeared on comedian Theo Von’s YouTube channel for a lengthy sit-down interview, which touched on everything from cocaine to the power of lobby groups.

He then grabbed perhaps the most sought-after slot in American media in 2024: a three-hour conversation with the world’s biggest podcaster, Joe Rogan.

It’s hard to know exactly which parts of the campaign are striking a chord, but it appears an increasing number of young men are buying what Trump is selling.

Traditionally, American men under thirty have a strong preference for the Democrats in national elections.

But recent polling from the Harvard Kennedy School shows that since 2020, “the share of young men who identify as registered Democrats has fallen by 7 percentage points, while those who identify as Republicans have increased by 7 points — a net shift of 14 points in only four years.” “.

Sunshine Hillygus, a professor of political science at Duke University in North Carolina, points out that it is notoriously difficult to gather robust data on a group that is “very difficult to get to cooperate.”

But she says there is growing evidence of a noticeable shift.

“There’s been a big spike in the number of young women calling themselves liberals,” she says.

“That’s kind of a summary of all the issues, and when we dig deeper into individual issues, you see a greater concern about the climate and reproductive rights for young women than for young men.”

Concerns about inflation and the economy, meanwhile, are often “a more highly rated concern for young men”, says Professor Hillygus.

She expects this shift will result in a different voting pattern on Election Day.

“It is predicted that a much higher percentage of young women will vote for Harris than young men,” she says.

Harris goes after women where they are

As Trump emerges in the media world, Kamala Harris has also limited her message to young women in particular.

She did an interview on the mega-popular Call Her Daddy, Spotify’s second biggest podcast after The Joe Rogan Experience.

The 40-minute conversation delved into Harris’ backstory, as well as issues like housing affordability. But the main focus has been on access to abortion.

Host Alex Cooper said she was devastated to invite a politician to her show, which has around five million downloads a week.

“I’ve been going back and forth on this decision to run or not for a while, but ultimately I couldn’t see a world where one of the most important conversations in this election is about women. and I’m not part of it.”

Harris’ deliberate outreach to young women appears to be paying off.

An NBC poll found that American women under the age of 30 said they will vote for Harris over Trump by a 33-point margin.

Eighteen-year-old Eva Eapen says she has noticed a big difference in her age group.

Eva, a student at North Carolina University in Chapel Hill, calls herself an independent voter. But she is volunteering with the Democratic campaign for governor of the state and will vote for Harris for president.

“I think young men are leaning toward Trump to an astonishing degree,” she says.

“And I think young women are rallying for Kamala Harris.

“I’ve seen it in my own friends. I’ve talked to friends who have seen it in their male friends, male siblings or male partners.”

Eva says there are issues where she disagrees with Democrats, such as border policy (she says “the southern border is a bit of a mess”). But she says the vice president’s pledge to restore the nation’s right to abortion is crucial to her.

“Reproductive rights are huge, as I think they are for women across the country,” she said.

“(It’s) critically important to so many women, including conservative women.

“I think they are uniting to say that we feel like we are losing our autonomy. We feel like our agency is being threatened and challenged, and that is something to vote for. That is something to fight for.”

She called Harris’ appearance on Call Her Daddy a “brilliant move” because “the audience for that podcast is not politically engaged women.”

Conversely, she thinks Democrats have done a terrible job dealing with young men who have been “neglected by the left and by the Democratic Party for a very long time.”

Will young people emerge?

With just a week to go until Election Day, both the national and major swing state polls are effectively tied.

There is little confidence among pollsters about which way this election will go, but most expect the gender gap to be wider in 2024 than in previous campaigns.

And in an election that could come down to a few thousand votes, getting young people to the polls could be the difference between victory and defeat.

But there could be a problem: Young Americans under 30 are traditionally not reliable voters.

Voting is not mandatory in the United States, and a major challenge for candidates is motivating people to show up and cast their votes.

In the 2020 presidential election, youth turnout was unusually high, but still stood at just over 50 percent.

Professor Hillygus says the younger voting cohort could be crucial

“When you’re dealing with an evenly divided state with two parties, youth turnout can make all the difference.”

– of Phoebe Hosier in Washington DC