Donald Trump relies on men. Will they stand up for him?

PHILADELPHIA – The city’s oldest bar, McGillin’s Olde Ale House, is perpetually decorated with Eagles ephemera, but on the night of the first presidential debate between Kamala Harris And Donald Trumpwhich happens to be taking place down the street at the National Constitution Center, the televisions at McGillin’s aren’t sporting. They’re ready for cable news as the networks count down the hours until the main event.

James Johnson is ready. “It’s game day!” he says. Johnson is 46, white and from Mississippi. He has never voted in his life; right now, in early September, it’s not even registered yet.

On paper, Johnson looks like the type of voter the Trump campaign is banking on to lead them to victory this election cycle: low-propensity voters, mostly Gentlemenwho might be inclined to support Trump even if he didn’t show up in 2020 or 2016.

It’s a risky strategy—low propensity voters are by definition unreliable—but it comes from necessity. At this point in his political career, Trump is a well-known figure, with a fairly consistent ceiling of 47 percent support nationally. He is not introducing himself to voters for the first time, nor is he changing his message to appeal to a larger portion of the electorate. Instead, his campaign and allied outside groups, such as Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA and Elon Musk’s America PAC, are focused on boosting his numbers with men who haven’t voted before.

Johnson is in Philadelphia for work and shares a pitcher and hot wings with two colleagues attending the same conference: Tamarco White, who is black and also from Mississippi, and Luis Renta, a native of Puerto Rico. Together, the men represent the voters the Trump campaign hopes to convince this election season. There’s just one problem: Right now, in September, only one of the three men at the table — Renta — is expressing even a hint of ambivalence about supporting Harris over Trump.

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Johnson plans to cast the very first vote of his life for Harris — largely because of her stance on reproductive rights. He has two sons, both in high school now, but he remembers the time he and his wife first tried to get pregnant.

“It was an ectopic pregnancy,” Johnson recalls. That’s when a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus; such a pregnancy is not viable and the condition, if left untreated, can lead to devastating injury or death. His wife needed one abortionand she got one. Then they became pregnant for the second time and shortly after the pregnancy the baby lost its heartbeat. Once again, his wife needed abortion care – the kind of care women in Mississippi would not have access to today.

“I don’t have daughters, but I have friends who have daughters that I’ve watched grow up with my sons here, that I’ve known since they were babies,” Johnson said. “And I don’t know exactly the percentage of women who get pregnant and carry a baby the first time, but… it’s more common to lose that baby the first time, and maybe even the second time. time-out. You hear all the time about people getting pregnant and having no problems at all, but for most of the rest of the world there are complications involved.

Johnson tells me he has never voted before because “I’ve never really felt like my one vote mattered, and the person I would have theoretically voted for has never lost by one vote.” , so I didn’t feel bad about it. But this time the whole idea of sitting outside and not being part of this? I can’t do that.”

His colleague Tamarco White also plans to vote for Harris. (White, for his part, is not a low-propensity voter; he tells me he has missed only one general election in his life, in 2022, and that he voted in the primaries that year.) The Trump campaign has reportedly tried to reach out to black men like himself, but if that’s the case, White says, he hasn’t heard anything — from surrogates, campaign allies or the Trump campaign itself — that argues for his vote argues.

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SEVEN WEEKS LATER, eight days after the election, students at the Community College of Philadelphia, in the heart of the city, are eager to vote. Throughout the morning, they approach Ian Connolly, a young organizer from NextGen America, who has set up a table on the quad with donuts, coffee, and answers to questions about where someone can find their polling place, or a sample ballot, or more information about early voting.

Volunteers from the New Voters organization pass out slices of pizza as voters wait in a long line to cast their ballots after the Party to the Polls Purple Tour on October 29, 2024. Ryan Collerd/AP

Nearby, a Harris campaign volunteer tries to get students’ attention as they pass her on their way to class. Out of earshot, I watch as an animated discussion erupts between the volunteer and a trio of male students. They fit the demographic group the Trump campaign hopes to convince: three men in their early 20s, one Hispanic, one white and one black.

As they walk away from the volunteer, I ask the trio how they feel about the upcoming election – and I get three different answers.

Joshua Morales, the student the Harris volunteer had tried unsuccessfully to get involved, told me he’s not enthusiastic about either major party candidate. “Honestly? I feel like my vote doesn’t matter. I feel like no matter who I vote for, I’m still going to lose. I think the whole thing itself is broken,” he says.

He doesn’t feel like Harris or Trump have a real plan to improve the economic prospects of people like himself. “They won’t have all the answers, but it looks like it’s this: We’re going to give you another stimulus check, or we’re going to give you money to buy a house.”

Contrary to the misinformation spread on TikTok, Trump has not promised any new stimulus checks if he is elected. Harris has proposed a program that would provide down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers, but Morales has become convinced he doesn’t qualify because his parents own their own home. “Luckily they were able to buy their house, but now there’s no point in voting for her because I don’t get anything,” he says. (He happens to be wrong about this: While the Biden administration proposed down payment assistance for first-generation homebuyers, Harris campaign‘s proposal would make the program available to first-time homebuyers.)

Morales is registered and plans to vote for a minor party candidate. He says, “Just so it won’t be in my record that I didn’t vote.” He only votes because he is afraid that a future employer might have a history of not voting against him.

His friend, James Horochiwsky, 20, on the other hand, is excited to vote and plans to cast his first vote in a presidential election for Trump. ‘I like him – I don’t all his policies – but I like his policies. I feel like he has a plan, you know? Even though some people may not think it is a good plan.”

The trio is completed by Kaven Laroche. He votes for Harris. “I think, as a black person, this is the only right choice you can make for your personal betterment,” he says. “(Trump) has made several suggestions that he is very bigoted toward black people. And even outside of Donald Trump, his community of politicians is very racist… Last night one of his running mates said Puerto Rico is a trash island in the middle of the ocean.” (Laroche meant comedian Tony Hinchcliffean insult comedian who was invited to speak at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.)

Less than a week after the election, Trump surrogates are starting to panic about whether their strategy of aggressively targeting men and low-propensity voters is working. “Men’s turnout inside Pennsylvania because Trump has been a disaster,” said Trump-supporting manosphere influencer Mike Cernovich wrote on X. “Unless this changes, Kamala Harris takes PA and it’s over.” His concerns were echoed by Charlie Kirk, who has led efforts to sway voters with low propensity for Trump through his Chase the Vote program. “Early voices were disproportionately female. If men stay home, Kamala is president. It’s that simple,” Kirk posted. “Men need to VOTE NOW.”

Trump himself seems concerned, post on his Truth Social website that Democrats are “CHEATING BIG in Pennsylvania.”