The Lincoln Project's Ad Says, "Be A Man, And Vote For A Woman" - Will it be effective?

Lincoln Project Ad Targets Men, New Media up on Media Page, and the new Gender Gap Tracker

I’ve been thrilled to see my book How Democrats Can Win Back Men getting both international and domestic coverage! Check out many new updates on the media page:

• The publication Joop in The Netherlands published a piece on my book by Eisso Post (Google translate will be your friend here): De Democratische Vervreemding: Mannen en de Amerikaanse verkiezingen (The Democratic Alienation: Men and the American Elections)

• Jed Diamond at MenAlive.com wrote a piece featuring quotes from my book titled “Why Many Will Vote For Donald Trump in 2024 and What We Must Do to Protect Democracy”

• I’ve uploaded my book talk from Manny’s and my recorded interviews on “Politics Done Right,” “Diamond Programs,” and “The Listening Tube with Bob Woodley.”

• I’ll be adding my talk from the Belvedere Tiburon Library and another appearance on “The Many Shades of Green” with Max Margo Rubin

• I posted a link to an article of mine analyzing gender issues in both the Republican and Democratic Party Platforms

And speaking of media…

Ad Campaign Focused on Male Voters: “It’s Time to Be a Man, and Vote for a Woman”

I’ve been waiting to see if the Harris/Walz campaign would begin specifically reaching out to men. Just as in 2020, it is The Lincoln Project, not the Democratic Party itself, that has launched an ad targeted at men. (In fairness, the Biden/Harris campaign had one spot earlier in 2024 that aired in Spanish appealing to Latino men.) This week’s ad, titled “Choose Change,” features the velvety voice of veteran actor Sam Elliot and launched on Sept. 23. Thanks to Max Margo Rubin for spotting it and sharing it with me. Here it is:

I’m encouraged to see the political left’s focus on male voters. It’s urgent! In general, I like the video, but here are my reactions. First, note the title “Choose Change” — positioning Harris as the candidate of change. But isn’t Harris in the current administration? I understand going forward, not backward, but is it really “change” if she is already VP? Are things going great, so keep it rolling? Or are things bad, so we need change? I’m a little confused on the messaging.

Second, I thought it didn’t need the couple of swear words used. While it’s clear that emotions run strong this election, the F-bomb doesn’t sound tough or masculine here. They could have gone without it.

However, at the ending it says, “It’s time to be a man, and vote for a woman.” Indeed, we’ve never had a female president, but voting for one this year could help break the ultimate glass ceiling. [Edit: this sentence was just one line in the commercial, and has been criticized by many for being somewhat talking down to men. I understand that sentiment, and upon further review, while I’m glad again that the male voting bloc is being mentioned at all, I think this wording was not as effective as it could have been.]

Better than a one-minute ad, however, would have been if the administration had focused on some non-controversial male-supportive issues in the State of the Union, 2025 Proposed Budget, or 2024 Democratic Party Platform. But instead, they chose not to. They could have brought up policies to support male health, educational outcomes, and so on, but didn’t. So while I appreciate seeing attention paid to male voters [edit], let’s not pretend this messaging from The Lincoln Project is a replacement for male-supportive policies from the party itself.

White Dudes for Harris Video

Another short video surfaced recently, the White Dudes for Harris launch video for which they are planning to spend $10 million in ad buys. Here it is:

While I am again encouraged that the political left is focusing on male voters, I’m not sure this ad is as effective as one from The Lincoln Project. White men are a huge chunk of voters, about one third of the total voter base, so it makes sense to message to them (or at least to white “dudes”). They are betting it will be effective with a $10 million ad buy. What do you think?

However, I was troubled by a comment that the founder of White Dudes for Harris, Ross Morales Rocketto, made in a recent CNN interview about the ad. He said, “There’s large parts of the left who have gone out of their way to alienate white men over the last couple of years, and that’s understandable in many ways.” Understandable? I thought he was going to say “unfortunate.” The voiceover in the ad seems to acknowledge that white men, as a group, are being blamed for everything, and that’s not right. But then he calls it “understandable in many ways” to alienate them? Hm…I feel like he has a kernel of a good concept, but somehow the execution isn’t landing right. I’m not sure I like the whole movement toward these race- and gender-based voter calls, but that’s what has evolved. Whatever your opinion of White Dudes for Harris and the other identity-based groups, it’s an interesting development this election.

I also attended the most recent White Dudes for Harris training session which had an audience of 600 people during the live session on YouTube, a far cry from the 70,000+ (maybe 130,000?) at the exciting launch event. It was pretty straightforward ground game organizing.

Gender Gap Tracker, with Challenges

I’ll be digging more into polls in the coming weeks, but for now, the bottom line is that the race is extremely close. One challenge in following gender voting trends is that we have to rely on polls, even after the election, and we know how polls are imperfect. There is no exact count of how men and women vote.

Thank you to an attendee of my recent Belvedere Tiburon Library event who shared with me a new Gender Gap Tracker, a poll of polls, from Bill Scher at Washington Monthly. Wow, the gender gap has come of age this year! Currently, according to this methodology, Harris trails men by about 5%, and leads among women by about 11%. This is a narrower gap than revealed by some other polls as some are are shifting the average. While -5% among men is a great number for Harris, and below my target of -8% from the Emerson Poll and other exit polls, it’s not quite that simple as you have to adjust for methodology.

However, it’s again good to see the issue getting more coverage! I’ll dive deeper into this in a future post. Until then, cheers!

Oh, and if you’ve haven’t purchased my book How Democrats Can Win Back Men, the updated version of which is available both in paperback and Ebook for Kindle on Amazon, please consider ordering it. And if you have, thank you, and please consider writing a review!

Click here to buy the book on Amazon.