Vice President Kamala Harris is underperforming with male voters in a big way. Her campaign has tried different strategies to assuage men’s concerns about her ability to serve in the White House, but it does not seem to be working so far.
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Since Harris is having trouble winning over men, Democrats have resorted to their usual tactics: Pretending they are misogynistic. In fact, The Guardian recently published a piece making this exact argument.
One issue that could ultimately swing this tightest of tight races is rarely mentioned by either candidate: gender. Unlike Hillary Clinton, the supposed misogynist’s favorite 2016 target, Harris has downplayed the potentially historic nature of her candidacy. But derogatory, demeaning sexism remains a factor.
“Women – and women candidates – are subject to toxic and misogynistic standards that are often perpetuated in public and by the media,” the Emily’s List pressure group warned this summer. “Stereotypes and tropes centred around diminishing the qualifications, leadership, looks, relationships and experience of women candidates for office are always part and parcel with her campaign. This is exacerbated for women of color.”
Former President Barack Obama was pilloried on social media after lecturing Black men about not wanting to support Harris because she is a woman. Yet, it doesn’t seem that many on the left want to actually examine why the vice president is failing to win over male voters.
Author and Newsweek Opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon put out a video for The Free Press explaining the real reason why many men would rather crawl naked over broken glass than pull the lever for Kamala Harris.
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In the video, Ungar-Sargon points out how polling shows that Harris is “lagging Trump nationally by up to 16 points with men, and not just the white working-class men the Democrats have gotten used to losing.”
“She’s also underperforming with Black men in a big way. And when it comes to Hispanic men under 45, Trump is leading Harris 55 to 38. Many, including former President Barack Obama, have tried to blame Harris’s poor performance with men on misogyny.”
The author pointed out that “The idea that Black men owe the Democratic Party their votes or they’ll be scapegoated as woman haters is frankly offensive.” But she really nailed it when she discussed who Harris is truly trying to appeal to.
“The real reason men of all races are so reluctant to back Harris is because her campaign is not for them. It’s for women, specifically college-educated women. And this includes the messaging that’s ostensibly about or featuring men.”
Ungar-Sargon brought up the cringe video Democrats put out in which a bunch of supposedly masculine men declared their support for the vice president because they are not afraid of having a female president.
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“I don’t think that this is messaging designed to convince men, but to reassure women. Like so much about the Harris campaign, it’s acting, and bad acting at that,” Ungar-Sargon said.
This assessment is spot on. In fact, even when Harris was anointed as President Joe Biden’s running mate, I pointed out that she wasn’t there to appeal to Black people, but to White women. She provided a way for female voters to support a woman and a racial minority.
At this point, it is unlikely that Harris will manage to increase her numbers among men. As Ungar-Sargon pointed out, scolding and shaming people into voting for your candidate is no longer a viable strategy.