President Trump is losing the bros, endangering Republicans in the midterms and reshuffling their coalition as vibes change on the right.
The so-called bro vote — referring to young men — was critical to helping Trump win back the White House in 2024, giving the right what they thought was a blueprint for sustained electoral success in years to come. Trump went on unconventional podcasts and attended major sporting events, and athletes took part in the celebratory "Trump dance" trend.
Republicans were optimistic that they had cracked open a way to appeal to Gen Z, and started to brainstorm how to capture support from young women and turn the generational tide to the right.
But now, hoards of data points show that support for Trump among young men has cratered.
• CNN's data guru Harry Enten last week reported, citing polling averages that include Marist and Quinnipiac, that Trump's net approval rating was negative 19 points with men under 45 — way down from winning the demographic by 5 points in 2024.
• A February Reuters/Ipsos poll found Trump's approval rating with men aged 18-29 fell from 43 percent in February 2025 to 33 percent in February 2026. He got 46 percent support from that group in the 2024 election.
• The Democratic-led project Speaking with American Men found in a winter survey that 25 percent of young men 29 and under who voted for Trump in 2024 said that they wouldn't do so again.
• A December survey from the center-left think tank Third Way found that 61 percent of men 18-29 said that Trump is not fulfilling his campaign promises to put America first — including 64 percent of independents and 25 percent of Republicans.
The dominant reason for that turn against Trump, analysts say, is that young men are dissatisfied with his handling of economic issues.
CNN's Enten said that dissatisfaction is driven by men overall being unhappy with how Trump is handling the cost of living. He cited Yahoo polling that showed a shift from Trump being up 10 points over then-Vice President Kamala Harris on the issue in October 2024, to a holding a negative 30-point net approval on the cost of living now.
"There is no way in God's green earth that the Republican Party can hold on to the House of Representatives if this number holds," Enten said on CNN. "When you're 30 points underwater with the gender that put you over the top in the election on the cost of living, the No. 1 issue, that means see-ya-later to that Republican House majority, and maybe that Senate majority as well."
Asked about the polling data about young men, the White House sent me a statement pointing back to the 2024 election and defended Trump's economic record.
"The ultimate poll was November 5th 2024 when nearly 80 million Americans overwhelmingly elected President Trump to deliver on his popular and commonsense agenda," White House spokesman Davis Ingle said. "No other President in history has accomplished more for young men than President Trump, who is working tirelessly to create jobs, cool inflation, increase housing affordability, and more. The President has already made historic progress not only in America but around the world, and this is just the beginning as his agenda continues taking effect."
Beyond the James Carville-it's-the-economy-stupid wisdom, discontent about Trump's foreign entanglements also seems to be bringing him down.
Some of the same podcast bros who hosted Trump in 2024 have expressed their dismay at Trump's strikes in Iran, including comedian Theo Von, former Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan, and comedian Joe Rogan.
Politico's Liz Crampton alsofound that dynamic at play at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas last week.
"He's lied about everything," 30-year-old Iraq and Afghanistan veteran Joseph Bolick told Crampton at CPAC. "If you go into a war where there's no end game, how is it going to end? There's no clear objective."
The dynamic will pose a conundrum for the right in the midterms and beyond.
Trump's one-in-a-generation charisma and status as a towering cultural figure engaged low-propensity voters and young men, and encouraged once-stuffy Republicans to adopt a more aggressive, male-coded knockout political style.
But as those same voters turn against Trump, Republicans and others on the right will have to decide: Will they try to rebuild that coalition by adjusting the policies or practices of Trumpism, or seek new demographics that will help them build a new winning coalition?
Further reading: The Manosphere Turns on Trump, by Elaine Godfrey in The Atlantic.
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