Trump is betting big on this low voter turnout group.

There’s a new theory emerging about Donald Trump’s path to the White House: Young.

And it’s based on truth: young people teeth The trend toward the right is progressing, and issues are arising both domestically and internationally. But if Trump is relying on it; incel–edge road In the crowd, he might be in real trouble.

The Economist magazine published this in March. really scary article:

The Economist analyzed polling data from 20 rich countries using the European Social Survey, the US General Social Survey, and the Korean Social Survey. Twenty years ago, there was little difference between men and women ages 18 to 29 on a self-report scale of 1 to 10, from very liberal to very conservative. However, our analysis shows that by 2020, that gap is 0.75. For context, this is roughly twice as large as the opinion gap between those with and without a degree in the same year.

Put another way, young men in 2020 were slightly more likely to describe themselves as liberal than conservative, by just 2 percentage points. However, young women were far more likely to lean to the left than to the right, by a whopping 27 percentage points.

This isn’t just the US. It is happening all over the world and is influencing dangerous right-wing nationalist movements around the world.

what is happening? The most likely causes of this growing divide are education (young men have less education than young women), experience (less sexism in developed countries, and men and women experience things differently) ), and echo chambers (social media exacerbates polarization). And in democracies, many right-wing politicians skillfully play on the discontent of young men, while many left-wing politicians rarely acknowledge that young people have real problems.

But they do, starting with education. The top group is doing well, but many of the rest are struggling. In wealthy countries, 28% of boys and just 18% of girls do not reach the minimum level of reading proficiency, as defined by: [Programme for International Student Assessment]test high school students. And women outpaced men in college. in [European Union]The percentage of men aged 25 to 34 with an advanced degree increased from 21% to 35% between 2002 and 2020. For women, it increased faster, from 25% to 46%. The gap is about the same in the United States, where 10 percentage points more young women earn a bachelor’s degree than men.

There is no doubt that reactionary politicians like Donald Trump are fueling this discontent. There’s a reason Trump is friends with the worst conservative male influencers, including Holocaust deniers. Nick Fuentes and right wing influencers Adin Roth, tim pooland logan paul. And that not only soothes President Trump’s pompous ego, but also has electoral implications for candidates struggling to expand their existing bases of support. Remember, he never reached 47% of the national vote in either presidential race.

The Economist is also correct in pointing out that the left does not recognize the problems facing young people. In fact, we often scoff at how they finally have to compete in a world that is less advantageous than before. That sentiment is not wrong, but politically self-destructive. We have given the right new demographic weapons to wield against us for generations.

That is a challenge we must tackle in the future. But for now, just how dangerous are these young MAGA senators to Democrats’ chances in November?

2016Fifty-five percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 voted for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, while 36% voted for Trump. However, white voters in this age group were leaning toward Trump, with Trump winning 47% to Clinton’s 43%. Meanwhile, young black voters voted 85-9 for Clinton, and young Latinos voted 68-26 for Clinton.

in 2020Biden did even better with young voters, 60% to Trump’s 36%, but this time Trump outperformed young white voters even more: 9 points in 2020, up from 4 points in 2016. . Biden slightly improved on Clinton’s numbers among young black voters but held steady among young Latinos.

In fact, in 2020, men across the board narrowed the gap with Democrats. That year, Trump won white women by 11 points and white men by 23 points, while Biden won black women by 81 points and black men by 60 points. And Biden won with Latino men by 23 points, but with Latinos by 39 points.

Although there is no public exit poll data that ties together gender, age, and race, it is clear that this gender gap exists across all age groups. latest ipsos public opinion poll Because Harvard University’s Public Opinion Project not only found a large gender gap among voters ages 18 to 29; increase throughout the cycle.

What is noteworthy is that the gap between men and women, which was 17 points in the spring opinion poll, has nearly doubled to 30 points. Both men and women tend to support Harris, but support among women is higher than among men.

Given his dismal support among young women, it seems Trump has decided to ignore them and pin his hopes on young men.

” [Trump] The campaign is focused on a group of undecided voters, who make up 11 percent of voters in battleground states, according to an analysis presented to reporters by Trump’s advisers in August, The Washington Post reported. . reported In September. “Most of these voters are men under 50 who identify as moderates, and are majority white, but include more Latinos and Asian Americans than the general population, campaign officials said. said the person.

The problem is that young people are not necessarily the most reliable voters.

“Young women (55%) had a higher turnout than young men (44%), but that was true for every racial/ethnic group for which we have reliable data.” concluded 2021 Survey of the 2020 Election by Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. “Estimates based on Catalyst voter file data show that turnout was highest among young white women (60%), followed by young Latina women (56%). and 7 percentage points among young Asian Americans, but it was even more pronounced among Black and Latino youth, with a 16-point and 17-point difference in youth turnout, respectively.

And there are some early warning signs when it comes to President Trump’s gambling with young people.

Pennsylvania’s (very) early voting data and michigan Don’t just make it look dramatic Overall the number of votes is low Although these young voters are higher than the broader electorate, young men lag behind female voters by double orders of magnitude (14 points in Pennsylvania and 13 points on Michigan Stateas of Friday morning.)—both by slightly larger margins than in 2020. But again, this is very early data.

Democrats have long struggled with a dependence on young voters, the age group with the lowest turnout. It’s kind of interesting to watch republican party Now put the eggs in that basket.

It seems unlikely that young people will come to Trump’s rescue. The effort he is putting into convincing them is very likely to be in vain this year.

But that doesn’t negate the problems that will arise for us in the future as these young men age and retirement rates increase. But for now, based on the limited data we have, young men don’t appear to be the vote source Trump needs to offset the large female electorate he’s raging against.

Let’s start the work of electing Kamala Harris as our next president! From now until November 5th, sign up for as many shifts as possible to help voters who might not vote without hearing from you. Talk to progressive voters in these states.