An Ignoble Experiment: The Movement: Trump loses the bros, reshuffling the right

By Emily Brooks | Tuesday, March 31

© Illustration / Courtney Jones; Greg Nash; and Adobe Stock

Trump loses the bros, reshuffling the right

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.

Welcome to The Movement, a new weekly newsletter looking at the influences and debates on the right in Washington. I'm Emily Brooks, House leadership reporter at The Hill. Tell me what's on your radar: ebrooks@thehill.com.

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TRUMP POKES AT NEWSMAX

President Trump uncharacteristically tore into a reporter from the conservative cable channel Newsmax last week who asked about Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents being sent to airports last Monday.

"You're not doing a good job. Did you hear me? Can you believe it? I'm taking CNN over Newsmax," Trump said.

A tipster noted this came on the backdrop of Newsmax owner and CEO Christopher Ruddy forging strange bedfellows with liberal groups and Democratic states to oppose local media giant Nexstar's acquisition of Tegna, which would give Nexstar reach to 80 percent of U.S. households. The Hill is also owned by Nexstar.

THE BACKSTORY: Approval of the Nexstar-Tegna deal required a special exception from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to a rule limiting how many local stations a company could own. There was much scrutiny over Nexstar's decision to preempt broadcast of Jimmy Kimmel's show over his comments about conservative activist Charlie Kirk's assassination, which came after a suggestion from FCC Chair Brendan Carr, as it was seeking to get that merger approved. Station owner Sinclair Broadcast Group also pulled Kimmel's show at the time.

Ruddy has long been vocally opposed to the Nexstar-Tegna deal, saying it would limit competition, and been part of lawsuits against it. Newsmax has closely covered developments in the case, describing Nexstar as "liberal-leaning."

That makes him strange bedfellows with a group of liberal state Attorneys General led by California's Rob Bonta and including New York's Letitia James, who sued to block the deal. They, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom's (D) support, have portrayed the deal as "consolidating conservative media power."

Trump, though, was vocally supportive of the deal, writing on Truth Social in February that it would "help knock out the Fake News because there will be more competition."

Nexstar and the merger's defenders say the FCC's current ownership cap rule is outdated and keeps local broadcasters from competing with tech giants like Amazon and Google.

The Trump administration approved the Nexstar-Tegna deal on March 19. The following day, Ruddy and Newsmax signed on to an emergency petition with the FCC to try to stop the deal, along with the Communications Workers of America union, the liberal group Public Knowledge, DirecTV, and more.

Trump's jab at Newsmax came a few days later Monday.

Since then, the Nexstar-Tegna merger has been temporarily paused by a U.S. district judge.

Thanks to my colleague Dom Mastrangelo, who has been covering this merger.

Related from February: Trump strains conservative media alliances in push for Nexstar-Tegna merger, by Politico's Gregory Svirnovskiy.

FLORIDA CAMPAIGN CHARACTERS

There's quite the cast of Florida men running, or potentially running, for office as Republicans.

Adam Johnson, aka the Lectern Guy who took then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) lectern on Jan. 6, 2021, is running for a seat on the Board of Commissioners for Manatee County. The Washington Post highlighted over the weekend how Johnson used his MAGA meme star status as a launching pad for his campaign for the open seat.

Dan Bilzerian, the influencer who gained notoriety for posting photos of his extravagant lifestyle and now routinely posts openly antisemitic content, posted last week that he will run against staunchly pro-Israel Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) for Congress. (This is not yet official, and there are lots of questions about if he'd actually do it.)

And James Fishback, who is running for governor in a primary against Trump-endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), seems to be employing a campaign strategy of trying to be as outrageous and offensive as possible to get attention — such as by calling Nick Fuentes' fans "patriotic" and "incredibly informed and insightful."

ON MY CALENDAR

April 9: The Cato Institute hosts a book forum on "The Future of Free Speech: Reversing the Global Decline of Democracy's Most Essential Freedom" by Jacob Mchangama and Jeff Kosseff. Details here.

THREE MORE THINGS

1. CPAC ROUNDUP

The overwhelming consensus from last week's Conservative Political Action Conference was that the once-premiere annual conference has just a fraction of the influence and energy that it once had — a dynamic I wrote about last year.

This time, in Texas, President Trump didn't even attend. The main stage also showcased divisions over Iran, even as attendees wearing "Persians for Trump" shirts reportedly packed the room for exiled Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi's speech, giving the event a burst of energy. Coverage highlights:

• CPAC Used to Be an "Absolute Rager." Now, Some Young Conservatives "Don't Even Know" What It Is, by Olivia Empson in Vanity Fair
• CPAC Now Has No Trump and No Swag, by Ben Jacobs in Slate
• CPAC's 'boomers for Trump' conference hides divisions over Iran, by Rob Crilly in the Washington Examiner
• On CPAC's Main Stage, Fissures in the Party Trump Remade, by Kellen Browning in the New York Times

2. LIBERATION DAY TARIFFS, ONE YEAR LATER

Tariff-friendly conservative think tank American Compass's Oren Cass reflected on one year since Trump's Liberation Day tariffs — tearing into tariff critics who had predicted an economic crash and arguing that there are "positive signs" for reindustrialization, but that there needs to be an acceleration in investment in equipment and beyond.

He wrote in Commonplace: "The United States has made tremendous progress over the past year in unwinding the policy errors of globalization, constructing a ladder that can reach back out of the hole those errors created, and stepping onto the first rungs. Few still believe the hole is a wonderful place to live, or that no ladder exists. But without strategic clarity, we could slip backward. Without focus on the next steps, especially priming the pipeline of talent into the industrial economy, the going will be slow."

3. ANTI-MAGA GOP GROUP EXPANDS

Our Republican Legacy, the group of anti-MAGA Republicans trying to re-take control of the party, is now up to 29 state chairs as it aims to build its "shadow RNC" – recently adding new chairs in Ohio, Maryland, New Jersey, and Vermont.