It's a perfect fall day in late October when Donald Trump is welcomed to Greenville, North Carolina. The leaves turn, bright reds pop through the sea of ​​green.

Red also attracts attention in the waiting crowd, as the distinctive MAGA cap is proudly displayed by many of those waiting in line and is particularly popular with young men.

One of them is 23-year-old Jack Lawrence, who is looking forward to seeing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in person, a man he describes as “strong, charismatic, empathetic.”

He aligns with Trump on the issues he cares about, including immigration and the economy. But for Jack, Trump's appeal goes beyond his policies.

He says the Democrats have pushed masculinity into the background.

“(Trump promises) to bring back the masculine face that you saw in American men in the '60s and '70s,” he says.

“Just strong men who provide for their families and just be able to be men and not be pressured like the left is really trying to do right now.”

Jack says he grew up with “Christian values” in a small town about an hour’s drive from Greenville. He is currently studying construction management at East Carolina University, which he says is “definitely a more conservative-leaning school than a liberal-leaning school.”

He also believes the polls are underestimating Trump's support. “There are a lot more people who are afraid to express their opinions than you really think,” he says, because they used to “be hated just because of their political affiliation.”

Battle of the sexes

Trump's increasing appeal to young men could end up being one of the defining subplots of this campaign.

Throughout his political career, he has marketed himself as a fighter and a tough guy.

He competed in wrestling and mixed martial arts (MMA) bouts during his 2024 presidential campaign.

At the Republican National Convention, where Trump formally accepted his party's nomination, former wrestling star Hulk Hogan was one of the speakers.

Speaking to the women of America, he promised to be their “protector.”

And one of his surrogates, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, recently described Trump as “daddy” and painted a vivid picture of his return to the White House to spank a wayward daughter.

“When daddy comes home, do you know what he'll say?” Carlson asked the crowd at an event hosted by Turning Point USA, an organization that promotes conservative politics on school and college campuses.

“'You've been a bad girl, you've been a bad little girl, and you're about to get a bad beating.'”

In what could be the closest election in modern U.S. history, Trump is hoping he can get a notoriously unreliable group of voters – young men – off the couch and into the voting booths to put him back in the White House.

A noticeable shift can be seen in the muddy data

To appeal to non-traditional voters, Trump's campaign knew their candidate had to meet them where they were.

Rather than just focusing on interviews with mainstream broadcasters, Trump has instead turned to podcasters, YouTubers and influencers who have millions of young, male followers.

He invited online pranksters Nelk Boys onto his plane and appeared on comedian Theo Von's YouTube channel for a lengthy interview that covered everything from cocaine to the power of lobby groups.

Then he landed perhaps the most coveted slot in American media in 2024: a three-hour conversation with the world's greatest podcaster, Joe Rogan.

It's hard to say exactly which parts of the campaign are hitting the spot, but it appears that more and more young men are buying what Trump is selling.

Traditionally, American men under 30 lean heavily Democratic in national elections.

However, recent polls from the Harvard Kennedy School suggest that since 2020, “the share of young men who identify as registered Democrats has fallen by seven percentage points, while the share of young men who identify as Republicans has increased by seven percentage points is – a net shift of 14 points in just four years.”

Sunshine Hillygus, a political science professor at Duke University in North Carolina, points out that it is notoriously difficult to collect hard data on a group that is “really difficult to get to cooperate.”

But she says there are increasing signs of noticeable change.

“The number of young women who describe themselves as liberal has risen sharply,” she says.

“This is kind of a summary of all the issues, and when we drill down into individual issues, you see that young women have greater concerns about climate and reproductive rights compared to young men.”

Concerns about inflation and the economy, meanwhile, tend to be “a more highly valued issue for young men,” says Professor Hillygus.

She assumes that this shift will lead to different voting behavior on election day.

“The expectation is that a much larger percentage of young women will vote for Harris than young men,” she says.

Harris follows women where they are

As Trump looms large across the bro-media world, Kamala Harris has also narrowed her message, particularly to young women.

She gave an interview on the hugely popular Call Her Daddy, Spotify's second-biggest podcast, just behind The Joe Rogan Experience.

The 40-minute conversation covered Harris' backstory as well as topics such as housing affordability. However, the focus was on access to abortion.

Presenter Alex Cooper said she was torn over whether to invite a politician on her show, which is downloaded around five million times each week.

“I went back and forth on the decision to get involved or not for a while, but at the end of the day I couldn't imagine a world where this election was mostly about women and I'm not a part of it.

Harris' conscious outreach to young women seems to be paying off.

An NBC poll found that American women under 30 would vote for Harris over Trump by a margin of 33 percent.

18-year-old Eva Eapen says she has noticed a big difference in her age group.

Eva, a student at North Carolina University at Chapel Hill, describes herself as an independent voter. But she is volunteering in the Democratic campaign for governor of the state and will vote for Harris for president.

“I think young men are surprisingly drawn to Trump,” she says.

“And I think young women are standing up for Kamala Harris.

“I’ve seen it in my own friends. I’ve spoken to friends who have seen it in their male friends, male siblings or male partners.”

Eva says there are issues on which she disagrees with Democrats, such as border policy (she says, “The southern border is a little messy”). But she says the vice president's promise to restore nationwide abortion rights is critical to her.

“Reproductive rights are huge, and I think they apply to women across the country,” she said.

“(It’s) critically important for so many women, including conservative women.”

“I think what they're trying to say is that we feel like we're losing our autonomy. We feel like our agency is being threatened and challenged and we should vote for that. We have to fight for that.”

She called Harris' appearance on Call Her Daddy a “brilliant move” because “the audience for this podcast is not politically engaged women.”

Conversely, she believes Democrats have done a terrible job of reaching out to young men who have been “neglected by the left and the Democratic Party for a very long time.”

Are young people coming?

With just a week to go before Election Day, the national polls and key swing state polls are virtually tied.

There is little confidence among pollsters about the direction this election will take, but most expect the gender gap to be more pronounced in 2024 than in previous campaigns.

And in an election where a few thousand votes could matter, getting young people to vote could make the difference between winning and losing.

But there could be a problem: Young Americans under 30 are not traditionally reliable voters.

There is no compulsory voting in the United States, and a major challenge for candidates is to motivate people to come and vote.

In the 2020 presidential election, voter turnout among young people was unusually high, but it was still just over 50 percent.

Professor Hillygus says the younger group of voters could prove crucial

“When you’re dealing with an evenly divided nonpartisan state, young people’s turnout can make all the difference.”

– with Phoebe Hosier in Washington DC