In the year’s first wave of New York Times/Siena College battleground polls back in May, the No. 1 predictor of whether someone had defected from Joe Biden was whether the respondent was Middle Eastern or North African — a sign of the political toll of the war in Gaza.
The No. 2 predictor? Whether the respondent had a very favorable view of the podcaster Joe Rogan.
Overall, Mr. Biden led Donald J. Trump by just 49 percent to 40 percent among Biden 2020 voters who said they had a very favorable view of Mr. Rogan. Those with a somewhat favorable view of Mr. Rogan were also relatively likely to defect, with Mr. Biden’s lead at just 75-18 percent. In contrast, Mr. Biden led, 88-6, among everyone else.
We haven’t asked about Mr. Rogan since Kamala Harris’s entry into the race. But the recent speculation that she will appear on his popular podcast before the election highlights that his fans and listeners represent one of the most important swing constituencies of the cycle. They’re also part of one of the cycle’s most important demographic trends: a possible Democratic collapse among young men.
Although polls have shown Democrats underperforming among voters age 18 to 29 all election cycle, it increasingly seems possible that most or perhaps all of that weakness is concentrated among young men.
Mr. Trump leads Ms. Harris among young men, 58 percent to 37 percent, across the last three Times/Siena national polls. Ms. Harris holds an even larger lead among young women, 67-28. Surprisingly, Ms. Harris is faring no better than Mr. Biden did among young men in the Times/Siena data, even as she’s made significant gains among young women.
If this enormous gender gap among young voters holds up, it will be one of the most important developments of the election season, one that would at once clarify a surprising trend and perhaps even change how we understand gender and cultural dynamics in America today.
The signs of possible Trump strength among young men are obvious online. Many of the major online young male subcultures, from gaming and gambling to cryptocurrency and weight lifting, are increasingly tinged with an anti-establishment ethos and a kind of conservative politics. Whether it’s TikTok or X, a new social media ecosystem has immersed younger and disengaged voters in more pro-Trump content than ever before.
But this trend is not always obvious in the polling. There aren’t many polls that report results among young men and young women, as it takes an especially large survey to accumulate large enough samples for such small subgroups. And inconveniently, several of the firms that have done so offer seemingly contradictory results. The Times/Siena poll shows Ms. Harris faring worse among younger men (and better among young women) than other polls do.
Despite the conflicting data, this is a case where there’s a best answer — even if not a definitive one: Young men are much more Republican than young women, and on balance they seem poised to back Mr. Trump this November.
Party registration
This article will agonize over imperfect polls, so let’s start with one indisputable and ultimately decisive fact: In states with party registration, young women are registered as Democrats by a two-to-one margin, while young men are more evenly divided.
Among young men, 28 percent are registered as Democrats and 27 percent as Republicans, according to data from the nonpartisan L2 voter file, with the balance unaffiliated. Young women’s registration favors Democrats, 41-18.
A few caveats:
The states with party registration are more Democratic than the nation as a whole, as most of the South does not have party registration. If every state had party registration, young men would probably tilt Republican.
Party registration is a lagging indicator; it reflects partisanship at the time of registration. But new party registrations, a sliver of the total, can provide some insight into what’s happening now. Over the last year, young men have registered as Republicans by a six-percentage-point margin, 30-24.
The unaffiliated voters are a huge elephant in the room. Nearly half of young voters in these states are not affiliated with a major party. Needless to say, the party registration data tells us nothing about their allegiances. They could lean either way.
Times/Siena data
Most of what we know about unaffiliated voters comes from polling, and here the Times/Siena poll can help fill in the blanks.
Over the last year, we’ve conducted interviews with nearly 15,000 voters in our national surveys, yielding sizable subsamples of young men (1,181 of them) and young women (1,278). We even have a reasonable sample of young unaffiliated voters in states with party registration (576).
No matter how you measure it, the Times/Siena results show an enormous gender gap.
Across the presidential race, the Democratic candidate (combining Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden) led among young women, 62-31, while Mr. Trump led among young men, 55-38.
The tallies are similar by party identification. Over the last year, young women nationwide have leaned Democratic, 66 percent to 27 percent. Young men, however, have leaned Republican, 53 percent to 40 percent.
Importantly, the young Times/Siena respondents from the states with party registration have a very similar partisan breakdown (Democrats 38 percent, Republicans 20 percent) to the current tallies from L2 (Democrats 35 percent, Republicans 23 percent), including by gender.
The young men in the Times/Siena polls also appear to be ever so slightly more Democratic (29 percent to 24 percent) than the official figures (28 percent Democratic to 27 percent Republican), though the difference is well within the margin of error given the small sample.
That leaves a big mystery — the unaffiliated young voters in the states with party registration. In our polls, young unaffiliated voters do lean Democratic overall, but they differ by gender. Unaffiliated women overwhelmingly back the Democrats while men are roughly split. Because young men overall split fairly evenly in the relatively Democratic-leaning states with party registration, it points toward a Republican edge overall, given that the states without party registration tend to be more conservative.
Together, the party registration and Times/Siena data tell an internally consistent and clear story about a lot of Republican strength among young men.
Other signs from polling (wonk scale 8/10)
The other polling is a little split, but on balance it supports the same story.
Here are seven figures, for either party identification or the presidential race, from seven different pollsters, including Times/Siena:
As you can see, there’s a pretty big spread here. The Times/Siena poll is among the most Republican-leaning among young men, but on average, Republicans or Mr. Trump lead across these seven measures.
Usually, it would suffice to take the simple average and move on. In this case, though, the two relatively pro-Harris data points — from the Pew ATP and the Harvard/Ipsos youth poll — merit additional exploration.
If you look carefully at the chart, you will note that the same organizations are producing other polls — the Pew NPORS and ABC/Ipsos polls — that show Republicans faring much better.
What’s going on? The difference may have to do with something that distinguishes the Pew ATP and Ipsos polls from the others on this list: They’re conducted by sampling from a panel of Americans who were previously recruited to repeatedly take surveys for Pew (Pew’s American Trends Panel) and Ipsos (the Ipsos KnowledgePanel).
These are two very high-quality polls, but they face one major challenge: “panel attrition,” in which panelists gradually leave the panel over time, leaving a more engaged, less representative group of respondents. At polling conferences, Pew Research and Ipsos have described significant challenges with attrition. In both cases, Republicans and Mr. Trump’s supporters have been far likelier to exit their panels, leaving an increasingly Democratic-friendly group of people who have remained on the panel over time.
To try to compensate for attrition, Pew Research now fields a high-quality annual mail survey: the aforementioned Pew NPORS survey. This survey obtains a remarkably high response rate — around 30 percent — thanks to financial incentives and multiple months of fielding. The purpose of the survey is to get the best possible measure of the partisan makeup of America; that information is then used to adjust the partisan makeup of the ATP survey to counteract any possible bias caused by panel attrition. Or put differently: The overall partisanship of the Pew ATP is now based on the partisanship of the Pew NPORS, which found Republicans with a 26-point edge among young men.
If that’s the case, why doesn’t the Pew ATP show the same Republican advantage among young men that NPORS does? It’s because the ATP poll is weighted to have the same partisan breakdown as the NPORS overall, but not by age. If it did, it would presumably show a large advantage for Republicans among young men. Either way, Pew’s choices make it harder to favor the ATP over the NPORS data, which showed a large Republican advantage.
The same issue applies to the data from the Ipsos KnowledgePanel. It, too, (often) uses the NPORS study’s partisanship data to weight its surveys. But Ipsos goes even further — it also weights on past vote in the 2020 election. At a polling conference in 2023, Ipsos reported that past-vote weighting was necessary to prevent the KnowledgePanel data from taking on a significant Democratic lean. But even with past vote and party weights, the Reuters/Ipsos and ABC/Ipsos data have still been the most Democratic-leaning of the cycle.
Nonetheless, the Harvard youth poll study did not do either of these things. It did not weight on either partisanship or past vote, despite Ipsos’s public statements that such weights are necessary to avoid very Democratic results. And in fact that’s exactly what the Harvard poll has produced: results that are far more Democratic than virtually every other measure of young voters. The aforementioned ABC/Ipsos data, weighted by party and past vote, shows a much tighter race among young men, in line with other polling.
Obviously, no one can be sure how young men will vote in November. The data isn’t in perfect alignment, and even if it were, these are small subgroups. Nonetheless, the balance of the data is reasonably clear. The party registration data and the preponderance of the polling show a sizable gender gap among young voters, and a narrow to modest Trump lead or Republican advantage among young men. It won’t be surprising if Mr. Trump wins them.
The post The Evidence for a Big Youth Gender Gap and a Right Turn for Young Men appeared first on New York Times.