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With polls showing Donald Trump at least an even chance to reclaim the White House, a leading American thinker says the Democrats have failed to grasp a key factor propelling his comeback – the problem of men abandoning the left.
Dr Warren Farrell, intellectual father of the men’s rights movement in America, told The Australian Trump had been successful in politically harnessing the frustration of many men across the country who felt their problems had been dismissed for too long.
The trend shows up in all the polls, with The Wall Street Journal finding the gender divide had broadened since 2020 and Trump’s five-point advantage among men in that election had widened to 10 points – cutting across racial, educational and economic groups. An NBC poll conducted in early October found Trump leading Harris among men by 56-40 per cent.
The New York Times has also sounded the alarm on a Democratic “collapse” among males, reporting on October 18 that Trump was leading Harris among young men by 58 per cent to 37 per cent across the last three NYT/Siena national polls.
“Trump is getting a huge amount of the male support. This is the biggest gender gap in history,” Farrell said. “Kamala Harris doesn’t have a clue as to why.
“Kamala’s problem with male voters is mirrored in Trump’s lack of support among female voters … energised by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade.” The same NYT poll showing young men favouring Trump also revealed Harris with an even larger lead among young women, 67-28 per cent.
However, with polling averages now showing a dead-even contest in the key rust-belt swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the inability to win over male voters could be the decisive factor between defeat and victory for Harris.
This is the view of John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. He said the share of young men identifying as registered Democrats has dropped by seven percentage points since 2020, while the share identifying as registered Republicans had increased by seven percentage points, a net shift of 14 per cent.
Writing this week in the NYT, Volpe said young women had only shifted two points away from...