Why Trump Thinks He Needs Young Men to Win

If Donald Trump reclaims the White House, he will have one voting demographic to thank for it: men. That’s the fundamental theory of the Trump campaign. In the election’s final weeks, the former President and his political operation have sought to activate low-to-mid propensity male voters, particularly young ones, with surgical precision to sweep him back into power. 

That’s meant eschewing traditional media interviews in favor of fawning long-form podcast conversations with laddish hosts who draw massive young male audiences, such as Theo Von, Lex Friedman, Logan Paul, the Nelk Boys, and Joe Rogan, who boasts the most popular podcast in America. Instead of trotting out endorsements from political heavy-hitters, they have touted support from professional athletes such as the retired Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre, former Pittsburgh Steelers Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell, and the boxer Jake Paul. At the Palm Beach headquarters, the campaign has built a data mine to target irregular GOP male voters and unregistered young men in swing states who they surmise can tip the scales in Trump’s favor.

Top Trump officials tell TIME the strategy is based on a glaring reality: Most regular voters have deeply entrenched views of Donald Trump. But for the last two years, internal surveys and focus groups have found that a cohort of men under the age of 40 are the most moveable in his direction, especially those less politically engaged and who consume news and information from non-traditional sources. “These people we want to mobilize, where there's really a high return on investment for us, are not super-political folks,” says a Trump aide. “We are not doing super-political media. You see us talking to younger and more male audiences. It’s data driven.” 

The analysis is also informed by historical trendlines. In 2020, President Joe Biden did just as well with women as Hillary Clinton did four years earlier—winning them over by a 13-point margin—but narrowed Trump’s lead with men. Trump beat Biden with men by six points whereas he routed Clinton with them by 11 points, according to a post-election analysis by the political data firm Catalist. “Where we lost ground on raw vote terms primarily was men,” says a Trump official. To that end, the campaign has devised a straightforward thesis of the race: “Max out the men and hold the women.”

That won’t be easy. The American political landscape shifted dramatically after the Supreme Court, emboldened by three of Trump’s conservative appointments, ended a constitutional right to an abortion. Following the Dobbs decision in 2022, Republicans have underperformed in races across the country. In the first presidential election since the high court’s ruling, women appear more motivated than ever, and polling shows that they prefer Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump by 12 points, according to a New York Times/Siena poll. 

Given that environment, Trump advisers aren’t under any illusions. They know the former President will lose with women voters but say their aim is to preserve the same support they had with that group in the last two elections. That’s why they've tried to keep the focus as much as they can on the economy, immigration, and crime—themes they say resonate with suburban women in particular. “Hold them steady,’ says the Trump aide. “Don't lose ground.” 

But there are signs the force of female voters could foil Trump’s ascension. A POLITICO analysis found that women account for roughly 55% of the early vote across several battleground states, whereas men account for 45%. That gender gap is apparent so far in Pennsylvania’s early voting, according to the University of Florida’s United States Election Project. With its 19 electoral votes, the commonwealth is considered a must-win for both candidates. For that reason, a web of Trump-allied groups are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into voter registration and mobilization drives there. The effort has been turbocharged in recent weeks by the billionaire Elon Musk, who donated $118 million to boost Trump’s chances in the crucial swing state.

Similar operations are underway in the rest of the battleground states, where outside groups have set up field organizations to target likely Trump voters. Thanks to a Federal Elections Commission ruling in March, Trump’s team has been allowed to maintain some communication with PACs and nonprofits. Trump officials say that has enabled the campaign and the constellation of groups to remain tactically aligned.

In some swing states, the arrangement is showing signs of success. In Arizona, where the Trump campaign’s voter registration and turnout drive was largely outsourced to the hard-right group Turning Point USA, Republican males are the highest early voting demographic among new voters. The organization, led by the right-wing firebrand Charlie Kirk, created its “Chase the Vote” initiative after Republicans suffered devastating losses in the 2022 midterms, when Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake fell short by roughly 17,000 votes. Trump lost the state by roughly 10,000 votes two years earlier. 

Turning Point says it created a “community-organizing model” designed to mobilize both the MAGA faithful and irregular conservative voters to cast ballots early, either by mail or in person. “We’re focused on highly-likely Republicans who are low-propensity voters,” says Tyler Bowyer, Turning Point’s chief operating officer. “People who don't always vote but are with us ideologically.” The group says it has hired thousands of paid staffers to register voters and provide a “concierge service” to help them return their mail ballots. It has also set up similar operations in Wisconsin and Republican rich congressional districts in Nevada and Michigan. 

If the race is as close as polling suggests, the election could be won or lost at the margins. In the Trump campaign’s view, their fate ultimately boils down to young men who have been disengaged from politics but who could deliver Trump a victory. It’s a risky bet. They are relying on the historically least reliable cohort of the electorate. But it’s the core of the former President’s unconventional campaign strategy.  “We start with what the data tells us our highest opportunities are, then we pursue that,” says the Trump official. “Sometimes that runs up against what the outside world expects.”