Why male voters are such an important target for Harris

By Jeff Zeleny and Aaron Pellish, CNN

Asheville, North Carolina (CNN) — The sustained support from women has put Kamala Harris within reach of defeating Donald Trump, but her campaign is urgently working to bolster its standing with another group of voters that could ultimately determine the election: Men.

In the final weeks of the race, male voters are among the biggest persuasive targets for the Harris campaign as it seeks to erode part of Trump’s advantage by spending tens of millions in TV ads on major league baseball games, college football broadcasts and soccer matches in the top battleground states and beyond.

It’s also one of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s most important assignments, particularly among White men.

“Kamala Harris isn’t talking about the historic nature of this,” Walz, the Democratic running mate, told supporters here at a rally. “She just puts her nose down and does the work.”

While Harris and Walz rarely discuss gender or the historic nature of her candidacy, the size of the gender gap may help decide the outcome of the November election. The campaign is working to “blow the ceiling off turnout among women,” one adviser told CNN, and “finding the gettable men.”

Male voters, of course, are hardly a monolith.

But the strategies of both sides have overlapping objectives, with Trump working to widen his advantage with White men while making gains among young Black and Latino voters. Harris is seeking to increase turnout among Black and Latino men, younger and older alike, even as she tries to chip away at the Republican edge among White working-class men.

Anthony Hernandez, 36, is a key target for both campaigns.

“They both have their qualities, they both have their flaws,” said Hernandez, a North Carolina voter who is torn between Trump and Harris. “It would be phenomenal to have the first female president – that’s exciting! Also, Donald Trump is a strong president. He gets things done.”

Hernandez, a nursing home cook, stopped to chat Wednesday morning in Hendersonville, a town in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina – a state Trump twice won that Democrats are vying for this year. He said he was excited to cast a ballot in November – his third presidential election – but this time, he was also weighing where Harris and Trump stood on reproductive rights.

“It’s not really cool that he would have power over women’s rights,” Hernandez said of the former president, whom he supported in 2016. “That’s up to women, I feel like, or should be up to women.”

While he said he was uncertain whether abortion rights would be a defining issue for him, he said Harris’ strong showing at the debate over Trump suddenly made him take her far more seriously. He said he would study both candidates and reach a decision just before the election.

Walz eyes persuadable men

While support and excitement from a wide cross-section of women sustained Harris after her rapid rise to the top of the Democratic ticket, after President Joe Biden stepped aside, advisers acknowledge that more men are open to persuasion in the closing stretch of the race.

Walz often speaks as the former high school coach he once was, as well as a father and husband, when addressing abortion rights.

“Go out to all of your neighbors and make the case on this,” Walz said during a weekend stop in Wisconsin. “Do you want JD Vance deciding about your wife and daughter’s health? Or would you rather just leave it to them and their doctor?”

His frequent retort on abortion rights, imploring people to follow a midwestern Golden Rule of “minding your own damn business,” struck a chord with Tobey Pierce, who came to see Walz at a rally here Tuesday night.

“None of your damn business is my motto now,” Pierce said. “It’s a wonderful way to talk about the whole abortion and reproductive rights.”

Pierce, a retired consultant, goes door-to-door as a volunteer Democratic canvasser. He said he encounters Republicans, too, some of whom are receptive to his message, while some are not.

“This year, it’s going to come down to a question of decency,” Pierce said. “It used to be, ‘Who do you want to have a beer with?’ Now, I think the country is at a different place.”

At a rain-soaked rally for Walz, Alex Vigil and Kevin Miller said they both believe Trump exhaustion could help Democrats make inroads in battleground North Carolina, offering anecdotal examples to make their case.

“I’m seeing a lot less Trump flags in our parking lot,” said Vigil, who works at a hardware store. “I’m seeing a lot more of my staff who used to be for Trump who are a little more excited for pushing Trump away.”

Vigil, a military veteran, said he hopes camouflage hats for Harris and Walz were one example of how the Democratic ticket has become more popular among men. But Miller said he still believes Democrats faced an uphill battle among many voters in his state.

“In North Carolina, it’s probably still a challenge with the rural areas,” Miller said. “They just don’t trust anything on the other side, but I’m hoping it’s going to be a surprise and there will be a lot more men than we think.”

Walz makes the case

Walz has been at the forefront of the Harris campaign’s pitch to union members and labor groups – key areas in which to try and expand their support among White working-class voters.

Those efforts were dealt a blow on Wednesday when the International Brotherhood of Teamsters said it would not formally take sides in the race between Harris and Trump, the first time in nearly three decades the union has not endorsed a presidential candidate.

Walz has shown he’s comfortable relating to voters through sports. He leans into the football coach persona when giving pep talks to supporters at campaign rallies that could work just as well in a locker room. And he often ties the campaign’s core arguments to the local sports teams wherever he’s speaking, as he did in Superior, Wisconsin, last weekend.

“The personal choices and the personal freedoms, we respect it, we respect it. We may not agree with it. We may not agree with that. Look, I get it. There’s some of you choose the Packers over the Vikings, that’s your choice,” he told the Wisconsin audience, which playfully jeered him in response.

“We don’t have any Super Bowl rings,” he replied with a smile, “Just give me my moment.”

Walz’s role on the Democratic ticket is part of the Harris campaign’s broader outreach to blue-collar voters. The campaign regularly plays up Harris’ and Walz’s working class roots, pointing to the Minnesota governor’s previous roles as a public school teacher and Harris’ brief stint working at McDonald’s while in college. Walz himself often draws a sharp contrast between Harris’ upbringing and Trump’s while speaking to working-class audiences.

“Can you simply picture Donald Trump working at a McDonald’s trying to make a McFlurry or something?” he told government employees’ union members at their convention in Los Angeles last month.

Part of Walz’s appeal to male voters comes from his aesthetic choices.

Branded the “dad in plaid” by Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar during her speech at the Democratic National Convention, Walz often hits the trail in a camouflage hat and casual gear. He reinforces his brand as an everyman by referencing his ordinary personal life on the trail, whether its sharing stories about his dog Scout, or as he did in one recent interview, stressing the importance of properly maintaining rain gutters.

“I try not to be judgmental on people, but when I see a well-tended gutter, it says a lot about somebody,” he told Kareem Rahma, host of the “Subway Takes” social media interview series. “No, I think gutters are a big thing. They really matter.”

That exchange underscored how the Harris-Walz campaign is seeking to appear on non-political programming, hoping to reach young voters who are less partisan and disengaged from politics.

But the Trump campaign is also targeting many of the same voters, particularly young men whose decision whether to vote – and for whom – could be a turning point in the election. For the next seven weeks, even as Trump and Harris work to keep their respective bases fired up, the pursuit of undecided – or noncommittal voters – is at the center of strategies on both sides.

Women make up a slim majority of the electorate, but the degree to which Trump can hold onto male voters could determine the outcome of the November election.

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