This is not my personal opinion, I know Gen Z men who voted for Harris. But the voter demographics really speak for themselves, and maybe now people will look at the radicalization of young men as a serious (but solvable) issue.
I was actually wondering how the gender gap changed in this election, and it wasnāt at all what I was expecting:
According to exit polls by CNN Trump gained +2% of the male vote, and +5% of the female vote compared to 2020 - though women were still more likely to support Harris, of course.
An analysis by the AP found similar results, with the support from men under 45 increasing +7%, and women under 45 +6%, while for older men it decreased -1%, and for older women stayed the same.
Surprisingly, Trumpās support among racial minority groups increased while white and older Americans increased support for Harris.
After thorough analysis and much thought I have ultimately concluded that I have absolutely no fucking clue what is going on with American politics.
Harris just offered little to get voters excited. Mostly ran as a status-quo candidate. Racial minorities, for the most part, are not happy with the status-quo. By being ignored, it allowed right-wing propaganda on media (social and traditional) to do its work. One thing Iāve heard is, āwell, at least Trump sent me some checks.ā Many people Iāve talked to werenāt happy with Bidenās involvement with the crime bill, or Harrisā being a DA that proudly prosecuted cannabis offenders. Some people Iāve talked to liked that Trump pardoned Lil Wayne, Kodak Black, and that woman who had an extremely long sentence for cannabis. One person Iāve talked to was upset about ālibtardsā removing black faces from grocery store products (using Aunt Jemima as an example). Some younger men I know (some racial minorities) have started going deep into the Jordan Peterson, Fresh and Fit, Andrew Tate, etc pipeline, which Iām guessing is rooted in sexual insecurity.
the real metric that matters is that way way less people voted. not many people changed their votes from last time. many people are simply convinced to stay home, and as always, that results in a Republican win. the propaganda that was most effective was all of the āKamala is no true Scotsman, so you should just not voteā. i believe this was lost by the people that ārefused to vote for genocideā. i think thatās what accelerated the genocide.
I really doubt double-digit millions of voters sat out because of Gaza.
Kamalaās vote total is roughly in line with what would be expected looking at 2008, 2012, and 2016. The massive turnout in 2020 on the Dem side appears to be an abberation - it was unique circumstances with COVID and all that. On the Republican side, Trump ran slightly ahead of his 2020 performance, and well ahead of 2016.
Itās basic electoral politics: Trump has succeeded at expanding his base of support and turning them out to vote reliably. The Democrats have not. No single issue is responsible for that.
You can blame protests or Gaza or third parties or whoever else you want - the truth remains that the Dem base from the Obama years is not large enough and not appropriately distributed to win an election against Trumpās base; whatever else you think of the man, he has been very good at gaining and retaining support.
but all of the same things could be said about Biden. he won. what changed?
True but I think thatās probably more of deep red state residents seeing their vote not matter live on TV every fucking election. Iāve seen the federal turnout but I havenāt compared state to state turnout yet and I would imagine thatās probably a better metric since like 30% of the population live where their vote makes no difference.
Itās the economy. Look at the numbers for voters without a college degree, rural voters, and lower income voters. Trump won all of these groups. In the WaPo exit polls the issues are included, not just the demographics. For voters who think the economy is the most importantly issue and for voters who think the US economy is doing badly: Trump dominated.
The Democrats continue to fail at shedding their reputation for being out of touch with working class Americans. The only income bracket that Harris won was the $100,000+ group. This tells us that the Democrats are an upper middle class and upper class party.
They probably feel like theyāre fucked either way and have nothing going for them. That makes it easier to side with the dude spouting hate. If I was that age Iād probably be in the same boat as them because being angry and hateful feels good and it took me a while to get that under control. I certainly didnāt have any actual hope things would improve after this election but I did vote for Kamala because she at least wasnāt spouting hateful shit. Not that it helped because I live in a dark red district. If there hadnāt been an abortion amendment on the ballot Iād have probably skipped this one.
Wow, thatās crazy.
I wonder how much of that is demonization of unions. If a big piece of Democrat support for working class is support for unions, does that actually matter when so many people of all incomes are taught to hate unions?
Then thereās the student loan fiasco. By all rights the Biden administration should have gotten kudos for finding so many ways to attempt student loan forgiveness, and for focusing it on lower income people (for example, people in income based repayment with less than $10k left). However the right succeeded in making that seem elitist or not independent and the left seemed to blame Democrats for not being more successful in the face of Republican obstruction
So many pundits were leaning into the gender gap so hard, I really expected a blowout landslide for Harris. This is the last time I pay any attention to commentators, forecasters or polls. My current theory of American politics is that weāve become a full-on Idiocracy. There are always idiots in any society, but I really feel like if we can elect the Orange Sack of Shit a second time, our collective stupidity has passed a tipping point. We almost made it to 250 years too. But nothing lasts forever. Hang onto your seat, I donāt expect swirling down the drain to be fun.
Some commentators were even publishing absolutely ridiculous cope to explain why the polls were 50/50. The media was working overtime to stick their heads in the sand for some reason.
After thorough analysis and much thought I have ultimately concluded that I have absolutely no fucking clue what is going
The statements above seem to suggest itās no longer about identity politics. The habitual way of labeling people no longer explains political results.
Yep, Trumpās popularity went down with white voters (albeit only 2-4 points depending on male or female) but gained ground in Latino and āother unidentifiedā minorities. He also actually lost older voters too.
But I think the biggest surprise for me is that Trump gained more of the new voters than Harris. And while I donāt have a gender breakdown from that, I wonder if a lot of those were males.