My Appearance on @TheTinMen, Men as voters vs. Men's Issues, and Updated Numbers on the Gender Gap
Post-election, Democrats look for a new direction
hosted me on his video podcast to discuss the Democrats’ loss among men
I was honored to be a guest on the video podcast hosted by online personality TheTinMen who is based in the UK. We had a deep conversation about how many of the concerns I had in my book How Democrats Can Win Back Men came true. We discussed ways the Democrats ignored men, what Democrats failed to do in terms of appealing to men, and what they should look to do in the future.
Here’s a link to a two-minute clip on X/Twitter. By the way, you can follow me there: https://twitter.com/Mark_W_Sutton
And here’s the full show:
Male Voters vs. Male Social Issues
When I first started this blog in 2023 and published How Democrats Can Win Back Men, I was hopeful that male voters and their issues would become a more important topic this election cycle. Partially, that came true.
The importance of male voters definitely became a central theme to the election, focused on by both media and the parties themselves. Unfortunately for Democrats, that attention came far too late and was not substantive. In 2020, I only identified one video ad that focused on men from the Democrats, and it was from the Lincoln Project. In 2024, however, there were many ads focused on men, from both parties. Although some of those ads, I felt, were not effective, at least they acknowledged men as voters. This is a great development. Going forward, the male vote shouldn’t be taken for granted by either party.
In terms of male social issues, those remained in the background for the most part. I didn’t hear anyone, of any party, mention the longevity gap — men die on average 5.9 years earlier than women, a gap that’s been growing and should be cause for alarm. I didn’t hear a lot of discussion from the parties of boys failing in education, and how men are now only 40% of college students. I didn’t hear much talk of policy issues for men and boys such as support for an Office of Men’s Health. Hopefully, understanding and running on policy solutions to male social issues is the next step for both politicians and the media.
Updated Numbers on the Gender Gap
Voting by gender is tracked via exit polls, and a common poll is the National Election Pool conducted by Edison Research which is used by ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN. These numbers will continue to be updated for a while until all votes are counted and polling is concluded, typically in December. But here’s how the exit polls look now as reported by ABC:
2024 Presidential Exit Polls as of 11/12/24
Men: 55% for Trump, 42% for Harris; Trump +13%
Women: 53% for Harris, 45% for Trump; Harris +8%
When we speak of the Gender Gap in Presidential Voting, we are looking at the sum of the gap of each gender; so at this time, that gap is 13+8 = 21%. This is in line with recent elections. However, I believe this number is indicative of the continuing gender cultural divide in our country, something I’m trying to address in my work.
As I update the graph of historical presidential voting by gender, a key component of my research, we see that Democrats at -13% among men were well below what I call the “Magic Number” of Men at -8% which they have needed to achieve historically among to win the White House. Conversely, they have won every time they have performed at -8% or better among men. I call this important part of the presidential voting race “Sutton’s Key” as it is a key to the election. It’s held true every election I track, going back to 1972.
If these numbers hold, this will be the worst Democratic performance among men since 1988, the year Democrat candidate Gov. Dukakis famously rode in a tank in attempt to appear strong on military defense and subsequently lost to George H.W. Bush.
If Democrats want to start to turn back the tide in 2026, 2028, and beyond, they’ve got to improve their understanding of and appeal to men. Of course, Democrats need to do a better job of appealing to women, too. But the group that Democrats have been consistently losing, for decades, is men. This is where the most improvement is needed—the data makes that extremely clear.