A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Next, we'll hear why many men say they'll vote for Donald Trump. Here's our cohost Steve Inskeep.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Polls say more women favor Democrats. Many are rallying for abortion rights and a chance to elect Kamala Harris, the first female president. We've heard less about what draws men to Trump. Frank Luntz offered to convene a focus group of 15 Trump voters who say they voted for Democrats in the past. Luntz himself is a longtime Republican consultant who turned against Trump. He spoke with the voters over Zoom.
FRANK LUNTZ: Why are so many men voting for Donald Trump?
UNIDENTIFIED VOTER: Yeah, I think they recognize the strength of a leader like Trump.
INSKEEP: Not everybody would use those terms for Trump, but these men did.
UNIDENTIFIED VOTER: I think a lot of men can identify with the image of Trump and that he is someone that I think, deep down in, a lot of men would like to be like. You know, he built an empire, right? He speaks his mind. He's not afraid to say what he feels.
INSKEEP: These men, at least, rejected the Democrats' alternative view of masculinity, Tim Walz, the vice presidential candidate who's a longtime teacher and coach. Partly it's personality. Partly it's that many of the men in this focus group accept Republican views on issues like climate change. But is there something a little more? We interviewed the pollster Luntz and also Richard Reeves, who wrote a book on the challenges facing boys and men. Luntz said the men in his group deny the gender matters in their choice.
LUNTZ: In fact, when that was raised, they resented it and rejected it overtly. They claim that it has nothing to do with their politics. And that was even used as a reason why they're so hostile to Democrats right now, some Democrats, is because they don't see this as a gender issue. They see it as an economic issue.
INSKEEP: Oh, this is really interesting. They did not admit when you asked that they had any bias against women, but they did talk about what they perceived as a bias against men. Let's look at one of your exchanges with a voter identified as John (ph) from Pennsylvania.
JOHN: He doesn't hate people like me. He seems like he generally likes all people, all races, all colors, all backgrounds. But he doesn't hate men in particular, whereas the Democratic party has somehow become the anti-male party.
INSKEEP: There's a lot that people might argue with there, Frank Luntz, but let's drill in on he doesn't hate people like me. Was that a widespread sentiment in your group?
LUNTZ: It was. And they noticed that the Harris campaign - I think this is a fair assessment - has really focused on seizing an advantage that they have particularly with young women and displaying it whenever they can. And guess what? Men are watching. And they think that the Harris campaign has focused in on women to their own detriment.
INSKEEP: Richard Reeves, what do you make of that?
RICHARD REEVES: Yeah, I think it's a reframing, because too many people, I think, on the Democrat side imagine that young men are somehow being pulled towards the Republicans. But what I'm hearing from this is that it's as much about being pushed away from the Democrats. And whilst I think it's unfair to load all of the cultural language we've had around toxic masculinity and mansplaining at the feet of the Democrats, that is something that a lot of men associate with the left.
INSKEEP: I want to ask you both about another thing that these voters said. Some of them said they would have much more easily voted for Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama, who seemed to them to be more qualified than Vice President Harris. And when asked what that was about, one of them said, well, Michelle has experience through her husband. These guys seemed more willing to vote for a woman who had a notably successful husband who was president before.
REEVES: I wonder if that isn't partly because Harris is associated with the Democrats in recent years and some of what men feel has been something of an anti-male party, to use the terms of one of the subjects in Frank's focus groups. And the trap that I think the Democrats have fallen into is to think that the only reason men could be voting against Harris or for Trump is because of some sexism that they may not be willing to admit. It looks to me as if attempts to shame or scare men into voting Democrat and not being successful and particularly the claim that there must be something behind this, either sexism or racism, even if they're not admitting it. That just doesn't seem to me to be true.
INSKEEP: Michelle Obama herself has campaigned and appealed for the votes of men for Harris. Let's listen to some of what she has said recently.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MICHELLE OBAMA: I am asking y'all from the core of my being to take our lives seriously, please.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: Do not put our lives in the hands of politicians, mostly men, who have no clue or do not care about what we as women are going through.
INSKEEP: Does that sound like an effective pitch?
LUNTZ: Absolutely not. The key is most of these men have sisters. Most of them were married. Some of them have daughters. And they would reject this. And they would say that's exactly why I've switched, because they're, in a word, demonizing me as a male.
INSKEEP: Richard Reeves, you have talked on this program before about the idea of men as protectors or looking after other people, that that's one idea of masculinity. Isn't that what Michelle Obama effectively is saying there to men? Look after us, protect us.
REEVES: But what Michelle Obama is suggesting there between the lines is that if you don't vote for us, then somehow that means you're anti-women. And that only takes you so far. And actually, it can really risk going the other way, because I agree with Frank that actually, like, men do care about the women in their lives. But men also care about other things, and so there's got to be a way to find a political message here.
INSKEEP: We are in this world where men have only been president. Men are a majority of Congress. Men are a vast majority of CEOs and leaders. But is something else happening economically with men at the lower end of the scale, Richard Reeves?
REEVES: Yeah, if you look outside of the top of the hierarchy, of course, there's still much more to do to promote women and represent women. But for men without a four-year college degree especially, wages have stagnated and gone backwards. Young white men from poor backgrounds are poorer than their fathers were. The suicide rates have gone up. Drug poisoning rates have gone up.
And so I'm afraid that an overfocus, if you like, on those real problems at the top of society leads to the neglect of the genuine struggles of men, as well as of women, much lower down the socioeconomic scale. And working-class men in particular, or young men who are struggling to find their feet in the labor market, they seem very open to a different pitch than the one they've heard so far from the left broadly and from the Democrats specifically.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIN HAT TRIO'S "FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH")
MARTÍNEZ: That was Richard Reeves, the author of "Of Boys And Men," and pollster Frank Luntz speaking with Steve Inskeep. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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