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  • In 2008, 58% of young people lean Democratic, 2012, 53%, and in the last two major election years, that percentage held steady at 55%.

  • But in 2023, that number dipped below 50% for the first time since 2005.

  • And you'll notice right here, they've started to lean more Republican.

  • And that's partly because of one specific group, young men.

  • Young men have increased their support of the Republican Party from 35% to 48%, a 13 percentage point increase in just seven years.

  • And this is a new trend.

  • While 2020 exit polls show that young men backed Biden by 15 percentage points, a February 2024 Wall Street Journal poll found they favored Trump by 14 percentage points.

  • And this loss of young male voters is a major issue for the Democratic Party going into November.

  • The question now, can Kamala Harris bring some back?

  • Here's what's driving young men to support Republicans and what it could mean for the presidential election to come.

  • When we ask young voters, what issue is most important to you when you go to cast a vote?

  • Among young men, it's the economy.

  • Among young women, it's abortion. 17% of men say the economy is the most important issue, followed by democracy and immigration.

  • Whereas for young women, the top issue is abortion, by a lot.

  • Why is this happening?

  • Well, we put the reasons into two different buckets.

  • One is the life experiences that young men and young women are having.

  • Those life experiences are diverging.

  • Young men without a college degree have seen the greatest decline in labor force participation.

  • Meanwhile, a record 87% of college educated women are in the workforce.

  • And today, women make up 60% of college graduates.

  • This division that we're seeing between young men and young women, it goes beyond who they're going to vote for for Congress or president.

  • It goes to a range of policy issues.

  • So then let's look at what the government is offering.

  • The Biden administration has moved to forgive federally funded student loans.

  • That affects young women more than young men.

  • During the 2019-2020 school year, 49% of female undergraduate students took out loans, compared to only 42% of male undergraduates.

  • And 66% of all student debt is carried by women.

  • The young women favored forgiving student loans by 45 percentage points.

  • The young men were about equally divided.

  • I mean, that's a big difference.

  • Meanwhile, young men support extending Trump's tax cuts by 23 percentage points, which cut the corporate tax rate and reduce some individual income tax.

  • And now because of our tax cuts, you can keep more of your hard-earned money.

  • But women oppose the proposed extension by 20 percentage points, a full 43 point difference.

  • That's data that goes like this.

  • Young men headed in one direction and young women in the other.

  • That's a big difference.

  • Data does not usually segment young voters that remarkably.

  • This is something new.

  • Which brings us back to this chart. 22% of young female voters say abortion is their number one issue in this election, a key aspect of Harris's campaign.

  • We trust women to make decisions about their own body.

  • Only 3% of young male voters said the same.

  • And young men and women stacked up differently on other issues as well.

  • With immigration, Trump's policies are much more likely to be supported by men than women.

  • Men support deploying troops at the border by 10 percentage points, whereas women oppose this policy by 15 points.

  • And when it comes to building the wall, one of Trump's key immigration policies, men are only slightly leaning towards opposition, but women overwhelmingly oppose it.

  • These gaps are hard to explain just by differences in lived experience, which brings us to the second thing that explains the gap between young men and women.

  • What are the candidates and what are the parties saying to young voters?

  • Donald Trump and the Republican Party are putting out a lot of messages expressly intended to appeal to young men.

  • Donald Trump has gone to ultimate fighting championship matches.

  • He recently appeared on the podcast of Logan Paul.

  • He went to a sneaker convention to sell his own brand of sneakers.

  • We've got to get young people out to vote.

  • These are audiences that are overwhelmingly male and overwhelmingly filled with young men.

  • And it's a way that Donald Trump and his campaign have been saying, hey, young men, I'm with you.

  • I'm on the same page as you.

  • I understand you.

  • Meanwhile, a lot of the messaging from the Democratic Party has been towards issues that are more salient for women.

  • When I am president of the United States, I will sign into law the protections for reproductive freedom.

  • So what does this mean for November?

  • Young women historically vote at higher rates than young men.

  • But experts say that with a tight election, the Democratic Party will need to draw in as many votes as possible.

  • The next challenge for the Republican Party will be figuring out how to turn these young male supporters into actual voters.

In 2008, 58% of young people lean Democratic, 2012, 53%, and in the last two major election years, that percentage held steady at 55%.

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