The DNC Story No One's Talking About

The 2024 Democratic Platform was quietly released Monday at the DNC, and again ignored men

The 2024 DNC was full of excitement and big names. VP Harris, potentially the first woman to break the ultimate glass ceiling, delivered a strong speech, as did Gov. Walz. Celebrities, media galore, parties, and red, white, and blue balloons rounded out the celebratory atmosphere. But that glass ceiling won’t be broken unless the Democrats win in November.

I may be one of the few people who eagerly awaited the release of the 2024 Democratic Party Platform. I was hoping, against all odds, that the document might include at least a few references to some obvious and non-controversial men’s issues. Like, for instance, the fact that men are dying 5.9 years earlier than women. What is more important than life itself? Why not mention that the Democratic Party cares about male health and longevity? Or perhaps the fact that boys are struggling in education. Shouldn’t that be a talking point for Democrats who claim to care for education? Men are now only about 40% of college students. (There are many other men’s issues such as suicide, homelessness, and opioid overdoses; see Chapter 3 of my book How Democrats Can Win Back Men for a deeper dive on challenges boys and men are facing.)

But, it was not to be. Unfortunately, this document is even more neglectful of men than the 2020 and 2016 platforms. The platform appears to have been written with the assumption that Biden would be the Democratic nominee and was not edited to reflect the candidacy of VP Harris. It also follows the familiar pattern that I have noted in Biden’s messaging — his State of the Union Address, proposed budget, and other communications have consistently and completely ignored men, boys, and their legitimate issues.

Unbalanced: Democrats Ignore Men Again in 2024

I like to perform a word search to see how many times gender-specific words are mentioned. Here are the results from the 2024 Democratic Party Platform:

Three instances of the word men are in “men and women” phrases, so removing those, the numbers are:

Women: 79
Men: 1

These numbers are so lopsided that I don’t think we can call this unconscious bias, it’s just plain bias. It’s men’s issues that are being excluded from the platform.

The one remaining instance of the word “men” is criticizing Trump for hiring disproportionately male judges (p. 46). It’s a valid point, but not an issue that is focused on supporting the challenges that men are facing right now. There are numerous sections on women’s and girls’ issues such as abortion rights which I support 100% (p.48). I’m not suggesting they remove references to women and girls’ issues. However, it would be a stronger document if it were more balanced. Some other issues covered, such as LGBTQI+ issues (p.56), include a subset of men. There are some other strong points on renewable energy and environmental issues. However, there is absolutely nothing for men and boys specifically. That is unfortunate, and it’s both poor policy and strategy.

If you’re going to focus on issues that affect women and girls, it is only fair to focus on those legitimate issues that boys and men face, as well. And when you fail to do so, don’t be surprised when men vote for you at lower rates. It’s not complicated.

During the DNC, I listened to a live WAPO interview with Harris’ campaign manager Jennifer Dillon O’Malley who had also been running Biden’s campaign until he dropped out. She said, all voters should be able to “see themselves in the vision that the vice president is setting out…” (12:30). I found this comment so strange — the Democrats seem to be going literally out of their way to NEVER mention anything about boys and men. Democrats don’t mention men’s issues at all in the party platform, yet, I’m supposed to “see myself in the vision?”

This is what I call the Democratic Disconnect with men, and it was on full display in this interview, at the DNC, and again in the 2024 Democratic Party Platform. I think the convention, overall, was a net positive for Democrats. But it was far from perfect, and the polling by gender shows that.

Democrats Still Trailing Significantly Among Men

I’ve been told by several readers that I was ahead of my time with my writing and research — the gender divide in voting has become a hot topic this year. Last weekend alone, here are two examples:

1. Newsweek recently published an article entitled “Trump vs. Harris Poised To Be Largest Gender Divide in Election History” that included similar ideas as my book How Democrats Can Win Back Men. It notes multiple polls that show a continuation of the large gender voting gap. It refers to the Times/Siena poll from July 22-24 that shows men at -17% among Dems, and women at +14%, a 31% gap. The numbers may have improved somewhat since that poll, but Democrats are likely still trailing significantly among male voters. (Thanks to a reader from Virginia for sending!) Author Martha McHardy quotes Jackson Katz, PhD, who says:

I have long argued that the Dems need to respond to this aggressively and speak directly to men, including young men, and say 'we see you, we hear you and we care about you.'

Given that the gender voting gap may be large, and that Harris is trailing among men to Trump by a whopping 17%, shouldn’t they plan to close that gap by getting more men’s votes by speaking to them directly, while of course continuing to seek support among women? That seems like an obvious strategy that the party, particularly members of the platform committee and planners of the DNC, is apparently unaware of or for some reason unwilling to pursue.

2. Maureen Dowd’s New York Times article on Palantir founder Alex Karp. (Thanks to a reader from Marin for sending this in!) Dowd writes:

Mr. Karp concurred with his friend Mr. Carville on the problem of drawing men to the Democratic Party, saying, “If this is going to be a party complaining about guys and to guys all the time, it’s not going to succeed.”

And later Dowd quotes Karp him again:

The unfortunate fact here is that this election is really going to turn on ‘What percentage of males can the Democrats still get?’

I’m not sure why the fact is “unfortunate,” but it’s nice to know a billionaire genius like Karp sees the importance of the male vote for Democrats. The subtitle of my book is Why Understanding Male Voters and Their Issues is Vital to Democratic Victory. As my analysis of exit polls reveals, since 1972, the modern era, Democrats have never lost an election when they have done equal to or better than -8% among men. And conversely, they have never won when they have lost men by more than 8%. I’m calling this fact Sutton’s Key, as it is a major key to the election.

I’m perplexed as to why the Democratic Party cannot put 2 and 2 together here. I’m not suggesting that there needs to be an exactly even word count in the Party Platform to attract men. In fact, I’m sure most voters don’t even read the platform. However, the document is important as it sets the tone for the party nationally, and some men generally get the sense that Democrats don’t care about them. That attitude was apparent at the convention where again, men’s issues weren’t discussed, at least in any of the speeches I heard.

Men and the DNC

Harris only had one brief mention of men in her discussion of reproductive rights. As I and others have said, men have reproductive rights as well. While of course abortion rights, just one category of reproductive rights, affect women most directly, there are numerous things from IVF to nonconsensual paternity that affect men. In her DNC acceptance speech, regarding “reproductive freedom,” Harris said:

Well, I will tell you, over the past two years, I’ve traveled across our country, and women have told me their stories. Husbands and fathers have shared theirs.

It was good to hear at least one inclusive mention of men by Harris. Walz, of course, also spoke to that while accepting the VP nomination. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Walz’s own experience that informed that particular line in Harris’s speech.

Walz’s speech also appealed to men in some ways, I believe. For instance, he referred to his time as a football coach and urged Democrats to “leave it [all] on the field.” He appealed to moderate or even conservative men with the line, “Look, I know guns. I'm a veteran. I'm a hunter, and I was a better shot than most Republicans in Congress and I got the trophies to prove it.”

And of course, Walz projects a positive image as a father and husband and had that touching moment where his son Gus shouted, “That’s My Dad!” which I wrote about in my post last week. But that appeared to be a spontaneous moment of joy, a beautiful one, rather than a carefully crafted talking point focused on men.

Other than the lack of attention to men’s and boys’ issues, I was impressed by both Harris and Walz, as well as many of the Democratic speakers. These folks are professional orators, and it showed. Talk about pressure…they all handled it well. I thought Harris hit on a great many of the other important themes in a way that Biden had been unable to. Polling, while still indicating a toss-up, is much better today than it was for Democrats last month.

Of course there are issues like the economy, inflation, jobs, and the Middle East that affect everyone, and men care about these, too. But Democrats still trail significantly among male voters, and the Democrats’ messaging didn’t do anything to address that deficit specifically, which I believe was a mistake.

If you heard some men’s or boys’ issues brought up during the convention not touched on in this post, please let me know in the comments and I’ll update it.