There is a significant gender gap in the political preferences of Gen Z voters in the United States, as evidenced by New York Times and Siena College polls conducted this month in six swing states.
Young women — those ages 18 to 29 — favored Vice President Kamala Harris for president by 38 points. And men the same age favored former President Donald J. Trump by 13 points. That is a whopping 51-point divide along gender lines, larger than in any other generation.
Claire Cain Miller, a Times reporter who covers gender, wanted to better understand those numbers. And she was especially curious about a specific group:
“I really wanted to hear from young men who were voting for Trump,” she said in an interview on Monday.
Ms. Miller recently published a pair of companion pieces for The Upshot, a Times section that focuses on explanatory and analytical journalism. For one of the articles, Ms. Miller talked to eight young women who said they planned to vote for Ms. Harris; for the other, she spoke with eight young men who support Mr. Trump.
Over the last few years, Ms. Miller has become increasingly interested in exploring how shifts in gender roles and societal trends have affected boys and men, some of whom feel they’ve fallen behind economically. Today more women earn college degrees than men, and are increasingly the breadwinners in their households. Over the past few decades, jobs traditionally held by men — especially those without college degrees — have dwindled.
Though Gen Z men are still somewhat more likely to identify as Democrats than Republicans, the men Ms. Miller spoke with described feeling unvalued in a shifting landscape of gender norms — and they saw Mr. Trump as a pillar of traditional masculinity.
“They said they just want to be a provider for their family, and a lot of them don’t think they can be,” she said.
Ms. Miller explained more about her reporting below. This conversation has been edited and condensed.
How did you find sources for these articles?
When The New York Times does polls with Siena College, the pollsters ask the subjects if they would be open to a follow-up interview from a reporter. The Times called back some of the respondents who said yes, and asked them more questions about their views. For this story, I looked at men in battleground states who were 18 to 29, our youngest group of voters in the poll, who said they were supporting Trump. I reached out directly to see if they’d be open to talking.
Why was it important to showcase the differences between the political preferences of young men and women?
The gender gap is inherently a two-sided thing. There’s a larger, deeper story that I continue to cover on my beat about what is happening to boys and men in American society. As social conventions and the economy change, it’s affecting boys and men in a way that’s worth paying attention to. Historically, we’ve focused more on the changes happening for girls and women.
The young women stood out to me for two reasons: One, they are more progressive than any other group. They’ve been galvanized by political movements like #MeToo and the Dobbs decision. It’s also interesting that they seem to have swung more progressive since Harris replaced Biden at the top of the ticket.
Did you approach the interviewees differently, based on their demographic?
I approach questions the same no matter the group because it’s very important to me, and to all the reporters at The Times, that we ask questions in a neutral and open-ended way. I never express a political opinion. I try to never ask leading questions. I’m truly just interested in what they’re thinking, and why they’re thinking it.
Did anything surprise you from your conversations with young voters?
Like all of us, their views had a lot of nuance. There’s a stereotype about young men who support Trump, that perhaps they’re hyperconservative and hypermasculine. A lot of them mentioned that, after he got shot and raised his fist, they admired his strength. But then they also said that they wished it were considered more acceptable for men to talk about mental health. While some said women’s progress had made it harder to be a man, others said it wasn’t zero-sum — that it was harder to be a young person now, regardless of gender.
On social issues by and large, they were mostly progressive. Many of the men were in favor of abortion rights. That was an area where they disagreed with the right. Their main concern was the economy: prices for housing and groceries, child care and health care. There was a time when a man without a college degree could support a family. Many of the men I talked to no longer feel that’s true. That’s something both Democrats and Republicans are speaking to in the campaign right now.
What challenges came with this reporting?
I try to write about boys and men in a way that acknowledges their realities and is empathetic to the lives that they are leading, and the challenges they are facing. It’s important to approach coverage with an open mind.
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