Attention, American men: Donald Trump and his allies want you to believe your vote says big things about your masculinity.
In the final weeks before the Nov. 5 election, the Republican nominee is amping up his hypermasculine tone and support of traditional gender roles, a reflection of the surgical campaign-within-a-campaign for the votes of men in a showdown with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
But where Harris is deploying “dudes” who use bro-ey language and occasional scolding to boost her support particularly among Black and Hispanic males, Trump’s camp is meeting men in alpha-male terms, often with crude and demeaning language. That means he appears on podcasts, gaming platforms, and alongside surrogates who define American manliness as a vote for the former Republican president.
“If you are a man in this country and you don’t vote for Donald Trump, you’re not a man,” Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk said on his podcast.
Subtle, it’s not. But the razor’s edge contest between Trump and Harris elevates the importance of small caches of voters who are apathetic or on the fence in the battleground states poised to decide the election. So in a twist on gender and identity politics, both camps are reaching out beyond their ideological bases.
“You’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is?” former President Barack Obama scolded Black men last week in Pennsylvania, the largest battleground state. “That’s not acceptable.”
The polls and history tell the story of the candidates’ pursuit of support from men. Trump, who has a long history of denigrating women and bragging about the size of his body parts, won among men in 2016, when he defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton and in 2020, when he lost to President Joe Biden.
This year, men appear to be leaning toward Trump and women toward Harris, though the size of the gap varies across polls.
“We cede zero ground in reaching the voters who will decide this election,” said Harris spokesperson Seth Schuster. Meanwhile, he said, “the only people Trump seems willing to talk to are those who will make him feel good about himself — hardly a way to win over voters, especially women repulsed by his toxic agenda.
The nation has an unbroken list of male presidents, who have been presented as father figures, role models and archetypes of American masculinity. Their ranks have included military heroes, including George Washington and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Lawmakers such as Abraham Lincoln, Obama and Biden. A son of the South, Bill Clinton. An actor-turned-governor in Ronald Reagan. And scions like John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush — a Texas rancher.
Then there’s Trump, the New York developer and entertainer whose political fortunes have survived a troubled presidential term, 34 felony convictions, a jury verdict finding him liable for sexual assault and two assassination attempts. He rose from a shooting in July, blood-splattered and fist raised, yelling, “Fight, fight, fight!”
He’s taking a paternalistic approach as part of a strategy that his campaign hopes could help him not just among men, but also among suburban women who might hesitate supporting him. Trump has long aimed misogyny at women who challenge him.
“I think women like me because I will be your protector,” he told supporters in Aurora, Colorado, on Friday, in remarks about illegal immigration. “The women want protection. They don’t want these people pouring in.”
Last week, Trump called radio host Howard Stern, whose audience is overwhelmingly male, a “BETA MALE” on Truth Social. He recently suggested a female protester at one event should “go back home to Mommy” to “get the hell knocked out of her.” His spokesperson, Steven Cheung, tweeted ridicule of Harris’ campaign using a sexualized slang term — “cucked” — as apparent shorthand for weakness and submission.
He often muses on stage about his advisers counseling him to change so he would better appeal to women — but then dismisses their advice.
Trump is employing a strategy that has roots in the late 1960s and 1970s, when Republicans realized that framing their opponents as soft and feminine could win them appeal among white working-class men, according to Jackson Katz, an author and the creator of the film “The Man Card: 50 Years of Gender, Power & the American Presidency.”
By positioning Trump as a masculine hero, the campaign has crafted a story, Katz said. “It really is like a soap opera for men.”
In a series of twists on the ever-present gender gap and identity politics, young women are growing more liberal, but young men are not. Most Hispanic women view Harris favorably, but Hispanic men are more divided on her. Alarm bells sounded in Democratic ranks last weekend over concerns about Harris’ support among Black men. And some young men feel culturally disaffected in the age of MeToo and Black Lives Matter.
In the election’s closing weeks, those dynamics could spell opportunity for the campaigns as they seek to carve more support from whisper-thin slices of the electorate that have yet to choose a side.
“There does seem to be a battle in this campaign to define masculinity,” Jack Z. Bratich, a communications professor at Rutgers University, wrote in an email. Trump, he said, is “harnessing their insecurities and resentments so they feel empowered to vote for him as a way of restoring patriarchal order.”
Harris has unveiled a plan to give Black men more economic incentives and opportunities to thrive. She’s sitting for a town hall Tuesday with Charlamagne tha God, an influential radio host. And vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, fresh off pheasant hunting with reporters in tow and talking football, unveiled an effort to improve the lives of rural voters. She wants you to know that she owns a Glock and that her favorite curse word, as she once said, starts with an “m” and ends with “ah.” (After letting out a trademark chuckle, she clarified further: “Not ‘e-r.’”)
Harris also announced that she’ll step outside her ideological comfort zone for her first interview on Fox News. That was enough to activate Trump.
“Fox has grown so weak and soft on the Democrats,” he groused on Truth Social, his social media platform. For his part, Trump is also appearing on Fox News this week in an all-female town hall.
In a sign of how important the votes of men are to Harris’ campaign as well: Men are appealing to men to support her. Hence the birth of “Dudes for Harris,” “Hombres con Harris” and Black Men Huddle Up” events in battleground states.
“What the hell are you waiting for?” demanded gravelly voiced actor Sam Elliott in an ad by the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. “Because if it’s the woman thing, it’s time to get over that.”
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Kellman reported from London. Associated Press writer Ali Swenson contributed to this report from New York.