When Megyn Kelly spoke at Yale University this spring, the topic was “the new media revolution,” but one student had another subject on her mind.
How can the GOP appeal to young women, given that the conservative space feels a little “bro-ey” at this time, asked Fiona Bultonsheen, a graduate student in Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs.
The bro vibe was evident during the 2024 campaign in Trump’s visits to a UFC fight, a Daytona 500 race and various wrestling events, in his appearances on “bro” podcasts hosted by people like Joe Rogan, Logan Paul, Shawn Ryan and Theo Von, and at a Republican National Convention that featured people like Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White and retired professional wrestler Hulk Hogan.
Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, described the convention as a “carnival of masculinity.”
The bro vibe still comes through in official White House events, such as when Trump let loose an expletive before the press earlier this week, and when his official statement on the bombing of Iran was delivered in the presence of JD Vance, Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth — not a single female adviser in sight, not even Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard or Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
Trump’s recently fractured relationship with Elon Musk has been described as a “bromance” but it can also be said the GOP is having one on a larger scale, given the influx of young males to the party in recent years.
Men ages 18 to 29 helped Trump win last fall; it was, according to NPR, “a 12-point shift from four years earlier when Joe Biden won the group by 11 percentage points.” This has not gone unnoticed by Democrats who have launched a $20 million initiative designed to help them understand the needs of young men and win them back.
But the conversation at Yale points out that a hyper-masculine GOP could present challenges for Republicans, too.
‘Bros’ and the female voter
Bultonsheen, the Yale graduate student who posed the question to Kelly in April, later told me that the effects of “bro” culture in politics had been on her mind both because of media coverage highlighting the term, and also because of her own observations.
Although she considers herself politically centrist, she said she often attends events sponsored by the Buckley Institute, a conservative organization that promotes intellectual diversity and free speech on campus and has taken notice of the demographics in the room. “It’s definitely more guy-heavy in general,” Bultonsheen said.
She is aware of polling that has shown an increase in the number of women who identify as liberal. According to Gallup, 40% of women between 18 and 29 identified as liberal from 2017 to 2024, compared to 32% between 2008 and 2016 and 28% between 2001 and 2007.
The issue of abortion is often cited as the main reason for this shift among young women.
“I am pro-life, and so I’m able to get over that hang-up. ... If you are pro-choice, this is something you would struggle with, I think,” Bultonsheen, who is 26, said.
But apart from issues like abortion, she wonders about the effect that the “high testosterone environment” at last year’s Republican National Convention had with women, and the influence of podcasters like Rogan, whose audiences tend to be heavily male. “It might be inspiring for men, but could be off-putting for women who think, ‘This seems like a bro club’,” she said.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has had similar thoughts. In October, after Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden, the former U.N. ambassador castigated the campaign for the rude jokes and rough language, saying, “This is not a time for them to get overly masculine with this bromance thing that they have.”
“This bromance and masculinity stuff, it borders on edgy to the point that it’s going to make women uncomfortable,” Haley said
Any such discomfort didn’t affect the outcome of the election. Overall, more women voted for Kamala Harris than Donald Trump, favoring Harris by 7 percentage points, compared to men who favored Trump by 12 points, per Pew Research.
But the number of women who voted for Trump overall rose slightly when compared to the 2020 election. Forty-six percent of women voted for Trump in 2024, 44% in 2020, according to Pew.
Jeremy Pope, a political science professor and constitutional government fellow at the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University, said it’s important to keep in mind that it wasn’t just men who voted in larger numbers for Trump in 2024.
“Republicans won more of everybody in 2024,” Pope said. “Why did they win more of everybody? Frankly, I doubt that it’s that set of issues that appeals to very online bros. I bet it has more to do with inflation. I bet it has more to do with immigration.”
Where young men get news and ideas
The Democrats, however, have been doing soul-searching on a large scale about the bros they lost to Trump. A report released this month, called “Young Men in America Today,” is part of the “Speaking With American Men” (SAM) initiative, which used focus groups and interviews to gain insights from men aged 18–29 who are registered voters. The ultimate aim is to win these men to a progressive agenda.
Among other things, the first report examined how young men consume media and obtain news.
“YouTube is by far the most widely used source for news among men 18-29,” the report says, followed by X, Instagram and newspapers. But only about half of men in this age group read a print or online newspaper at least once a month. And men are mostly using YouTube for content related to video games.
Significantly, men in this age group are consumers of “bro” podcasts. Four out of five listen to podcasts, with the most popular being Joe Rogan, Theo Von, Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro.
The report authors noted that young men are struggling economically: “Men are overwhelmed by the cost of living, the instability of work, and the distance between what was promised and what’s real. No matter their background or paycheck, many feel like they’re falling behind — and blaming themselves for it."
The report also says that a consistent theme heard from young men is “strength vs. weakness.”
“They want leadership that signals strength, clarity, and the ability to follow-through on promises —especially in a world that feels unstable and demanding."
The authors want Democrats to meet young men in the platforms where they are: “Engage with cultural content, particularly gaming, sports, and learning. This requires both investment and long-term relationship-building.”
They suggest “rebranding” progressive ideals to appeal to young men: “Young men are repelled by much of what they feel has come to symbolize progressivism, even as they agree with many progressive ideals and positions. Progressives need to prove they are not simply impotent scolds or elites.”
And they advise Democrats to develop more interest in things that interest young men. “Young men are tech optimists, which extends to high rates of crypto investment and AI adoption, although they are not unaware of the danger they may pose. Progressives should consider embracing issues surrounding tech, including automation, crypto, AI and nuclear power.”
In other words, be more like the bros.
But this could be a challenge in ways yet unseen. The project’s founders are Ilyse Hogue, the former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America; former Texas Rep. Colin Allred; and John Della Volpe, the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics.
Two things stand out in Della Volpe’s profile at the Harvard Kennedy School: He offers his preferred pronouns, and the bottom of the page has a land acknowledgment recognizing and honoring “the past, present, and future of these Indigenous people and precious lands.”
While championed by progressives, preferred pronouns and land acknowledgments are mocked by “bro” thought leaders like Matt Walsh, who had a bit about a Utah land acknowledgement in his film “Am I Racist?” Some analysts have said that Trump’s “Kamala is for they/them. I am for you” advertising was some of the most effective of the 2024 campaign.
Who are the ‘bros’?
Della Volpe, who specializes in research on Gen Z, believes that they moved right because of Trump and could move left when he is gone.
“The rightward youth shift in elections is largely built on persona, and not policy,” he recently posted on X. “Gen Z is independent and truly up for grabs to whichever party invests in listening and connecting with them on their terms.”
Pope, however, points out that the common image of the “bro” voter — white dudes drinking Red Bull while listening to podcasts, buying camouflage ball caps from Tucker Carlson and “No Kings But Christ” T-shirts from Glenn Beck — isn’t necessarily who the Democrats should be worrying about.
“If I were a Democrat and I were trying to figure out who to appeal to, I would not lead with white men. I would be trying to figure out why we didn’t do as well as we wanted to among Hispanic men.”
The gender gap was more pronounced for non-white voters than white voters, he said. “Even though every group trended somewhat Republican, Hispanic men and Black men trended significantly more Republican than did Black women and Hispanic women.”
That said, it could well be that if bro culture continues to dominate the Republican Party, college-educated women will be repelled by it, Pope said. “That could have negative effects in a future election. But I don’t know that 2024 proves that this is already happening.”
What Megyn Kelly said about ‘bro’ culture
At the Yale event, Bultonsheen asked Kelly what advice she had for women who are suspicious about bro culture in the conservative movement.
Kelly thanked her for the question and said, “We can’t let (the GOP) become too bro-ey.”
“There are just as many female Republican voters as there are male. And the way that we stop it from becoming totally bro-tastic is by speaking out and saying when we think people have gone too far, even on our side.”
She then mentioned Matt Walsh, who recently went viral for advocating that women stay home to raise their children. She said she likes and respects Walsh, but “we vastly differ on the future of the conservative party, the Republican Party and women’s role in it, and we vastly differ on what’s best for America. My own position is, it’s 100% possible to be a working woman and a great mother. And I know that to be true because I’m living it. Don’t let anyone discourage you,” Kelly said.