No Party Owns Young Men

According to preliminary numbers from Times Voter Trends, men under 30 backed House Democrats 62 percent to 36 percent, a huge shift from 2024, when they favored Donald Trump over Kamala Harris 55 percent to 41 percent.

Democrats made gains in most demographic groups, but perhaps no swing was more pronounced than the one by young men: 52 percent of white men under 30 voted Democratic, as did 76 percent of nonwhite men under 30, 65 percent of men under 30 with college degrees, and 60 percent of men under 30 without college degrees.

After the 2024 election, many Republicans not only began to see young men as fundamental to their party’s future but also felt that their support was locked in. Last Tuesday, young men responded with a powerful rebuke — and a lesson: No party owns them.

They showed what happens when you take them for granted — that frustration can tip an election, but lasting support depends on what follows.

In 2024, Mr. Trump made a conspicuous effort to reach young men whose formative years were shaped by pandemic lockdowns, digital isolation and economic anxiety.

Through podcasts, livestreams and a convention speech by Charlie Kirk about homeownership and starting a family, the Trump campaign sent a clear message: We see you, and your discontentment matters. Mr. Trump promised to bring down costs and keep America out of foreign conflicts. By meeting these voters where they were in mind-set and media preferences, he earned their attention and their votes.

After the 2024 election, some commentators seemed to dismiss many young men as aggrieved, misogynistic bros. But their shift toward Mr. Trump deserved curiosity before judgment.

“I was hoping he would make America better and the economy better and everything better,” said a San Antonio voter who went from voting for Mr. Trump to voting for James Talarico, the Democratic Senate candidate, on Tuesday. “But it’s just gotten worse.”

My monthly polling tracked that trajectory of disillusionment closely. Before Mr. Trump began his second term, most young men expected his administration to improve their circumstances. However, early last year, as the president’s talk of tariffs and trade disputes ramped up, survey data showed the start of what would become a steady erosion of his popularity, with more people seeing his administration as hurting their lives rather than helping them. A year later, when the United States attacked Iran, Mr. Trump’s already tenuous political standing took another hit.

A 22-year-old voter in Franklin County, N.C., said his switch to the Democratic Senate candidate Roy Cooper this year from Mr. Trump in 2024 happened gradually. “The passing of the Big Beautiful Bill,” he said. “It made our lives worse.”

By the time of the midterms, 58 percent of young men nationally viewed Mr. Trump’s presidency as personally detrimental to their lives, compared with only 21 percent who saw it in a more positive light — a woeful rating on a critical measurement of leadership.

Their concerns don’t sort neatly by party. Beyond inflation and the cost of living, the 53rd Harvard Youth Poll conducted in early October found that young men felt as threatened by billionaire influence and corporate overreach as they do about the national debt, and about two-thirds of them worry about the effects of trade wars and losing jobs to artificial intelligence.

In my conversations with hundreds of Gen Z men in recent years, I’ve found that their overall sense of insecurity runs deeper than any particular set of political issues. At stake is their confidence that as their lives progress, they will be independent, respected and able to care for the people they love.

“My dad had me, was married and had a house by the time he was 21 or 22,” a disaffected Democrat who works a hotel front desk in Texas told me in a focus group last year. “And here I am, 29, living in a buddy’s spare room.”

Heading into this election, neither party gave them much to believe in. Last fall, both were underwater in the Harvard Youth Poll, and the words young people chose most often were telling: Republicans were “corrupt,” Democrats were “weak.” A young man in a New York City focus group put it more vividly. Republicans, he said, were NASCAR drivers plastered with sponsor logos. Democrats were the corporate H.R. department.

This year, something broke through. Many of the Gen Z men I talked with felt a bond with who they see as some of the charter members of a new Democratic guard: Mr. Talarico, who won in Texas, for his empathy and moral center; Abdul El-Sayed, who won his Senate race in Michigan, for his willingness to fight for ordinary people; and Senator Jon Ossoff, who was re-elected in Georgia, for his backbone in standing up to Mr. Trump. Gen Z men could disagree with them on some issues and still recognize a depth of character and authenticity they found missing in the political establishment they had known.

“I did a lot more research and realized that there are genuine people out there who want to do better and want to do better by you,” a 23-year-old college student and former Trump voter from East Texas said in discussing Mr. Talarico.

Young men are looking for leaders who understand the lives they hope to build, stand up for them and keep their promises. That starts with four things.

First, take their aspirations and struggles seriously. For many young men, financial stability is tied to the kind of man they hope to become: someone who can support himself, stay healthy in body and mind, build a life with a partner and be counted on by their families and friends.

Second, make economic promises concrete and rooted in family life. Put the cost of groceries, housing, health care, child care and college at the center of political platforms, and show how specific policies bring a home and a family within reach. The temporary expansion of the child tax credit in 2021 lifted more than two million children out of poverty, showing how quickly policy can change families’ circumstances.

Third, confront the abuses of power that many young men see as barriers to a better life. The stock pickers in Congress, the claim denied by an insurance company, the data center next door and the rent that rises faster than a paycheck all feed the same suspicion: No one in power has their back; they serve someone else.

Fourth, nurture the belief that voting matters. Between elections, deliver on at least one promise that makes a real difference in young men’s lives, something they can point to as proof that their vote counted and that someone they elected kept their word.

None of this sounds complicated. But in decades of watching both parties engage with young men, I’ve rarely seen it done.

Less than 24 hours after the polls closed, Vice President JD Vance offered a postmortem on X. “Our voters showed up,” he wrote, then offered his assessment of why many of them voted for Democrats. The word “our” stuck with me.

Democrats made that assumption about young voters before 2024, and they paid for it. Republicans have done the same in Mr. Trump’s second term. Looking to 2028, there’s a significant opportunity for the party that takes the time to understand young men and helps them achieve their American dreams.