New polling shows a global trend is very much alive here, too.
Donald Trump’s historic return to the presidency was powered by one demographic more than any: support from young men – white young men, especially. One of the most remarkable realities within that trend is the gap that has opened up between men and women.
Women under 30 overwhelmingly voted for Kamala Harris. Men under 30 overwhelmingly voted for Trump. That under-30 gender gap – variously ascribed to media filter bubbles, the rise of the “manosphere”, a #metoo backlash and the allure of influences including Joe Rogan, Andrew Tate and the UFC – was more than twice the size of the gap in any other age bracket.
It is not simply a US phenomenon. New polling by Essential in Australia found that, across a range of measures, men aged 18-34 thought Trump would have a positive impact at vastly greater rates than other cohorts.
In a post for the Guardian Australia, Essential’s Peter Lewis dubs this cohort “the lads”. He writes: “On everything from world peace to climate change to the Australian economy these young men are twice as likely to see Trump as a positive influence compared with the broader population.”
What about New Zealand? Data provided to the Spinoff by Talbot Mills Research, drawing on polling conducted at the start of this month, suggests the Trump lads are very much a thing here, too. Across a survey of 1,003 people in New Zealand, 30% said they strongly or somewhat approved of the job Trump is doing as president, while 62% strongly or somewhat disapproved. That gives us a net -32 approval rating across the board.
Zoom in on the respondents, however, and the only category that returns a positive net approval rating is men aged under 40 – they give a net +14 assessment. It’s a stark contrast with women in the same age group, among whom the rating is -39.
The same poll asked respondents which party in New Zealand they supported. Approval ratings of Trump on that measure broke down like this:
Talbot Mills also asked about perceptions of the impact of the Trump presidency on New Zealand. Here 53% said it would be negative and 17% positive, a net -36 result. That was a downward shift since the question was asked in December 2024. Then, the net result was -25, with 43% positive and 18% negative.
When it comes to the Trump Lad, the demographic is not straightforward. Many, for example, tend to share some social views (such as on abortion) with women of the same age. In an interview with Ezra Klein published last week, Democrat polling expert David Shor suggested the gender gulf that has opened can be sheeted back to the Covid years.
“We’re in the midst of a big cultural change that I think people are really underestimating,” said Shor. “If you look at zoomers, there are some really interesting ways that they’re very different in the data. They’re much more likely than previous generations to say that making money is extremely important to them.”
He said: “If you look at their psychographic data, they have a lot higher levels of psychometric neuroticism and anxiety than the people before them. If I were going to speculate, I’d say phones and social media have a lot to do with this. How that translates into partisan politics depends on what the parties do. But I think it’s a big shift.”
The great unknown is whether that shift is a permanent paradigm adjustment or more like a bubble. The latest polling from the US suggests that diminishing opinion of Trump’s performance is being driven primarily by one factor: falling approval among men.
