July 2024 when former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan stood on stage at the RNC convention? He ripped his shirt in half to reveal a red Trump-Vance tank top and yelled “let Trumpamania run wild, brother!”It was peak “red-pill” for the manosphere set, a sign of the Trump campaign’s unorthodox, hypermasculine and theatrical play for male voters.

And men — particularly young men — delivered for President Donald Trump by 14 points, shifting away from Democrats and suggesting a political realignment.

Well, not anymore. And this is a big problem for the GOP as they try to hold their governing majority, as well as for JD Vance. The 42-year-old vice president imagines himself as a kind of young-man whisperer and heir apparent to Trump. But Democrats, who still have a brand problem, are not exactly winning them over either.

“Young men are really in flux, politically and ideologically in terms of their views,” says Alberto Medina who analyzes young voters at Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. “Trump was an alternative to a system they didn’t believe was working and they still don’t believe is working. So now the shoe is on the other foot.”

The Trump administration has squandered its standing among young men over a disastrous tariff-based economic policy after promising relief from the high prices of the Biden era. Rather than exit foreign entanglements, the administration launched an ill-advised war with Iran that has pushed the average price of gasoline above where it was during the Biden years.

The botched release of the full Epstein files also didn’t sit well with this segment of MAGA.

This record of failure isn’t lost on young men struggling to get ahead. According to a nationwide September survey of 800 men ages 18-30 by Cygnal, some two-thirds of them want Washington to do more about the problems they face. That includes lowering the cost of groceries and making housing cheaper. Among those who say they are most determined to vote, Democrats hold a 17-point lead over Republicans. Among those who aren’t likely to vote at all, Republicans hold a 12-point lead, highlighting the disaffection that could doom the GOP’s chances in November.

These numbers also suggest that young men were drawn to Trump and Trump alone in 2024. His appeal may not be transferable, no matter how often he tells his voters to pretend his name is on the ballot. Even as Trump has embraced brotastic online memes, hosted a cage match on the South Lawn of the White House and appeared with not-so-young “tough guys” Dennis Rodman, Mike Tyson and Floyd Mayweather, young men aren’t buying into the circus.

For his part, Vance, 42, has specifically focused on this demographic, cracking fat and gay “jokes” and liberally sprinkling the word “man” in his interviews. He also appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast to talk UFOs and sat down with MAGA podcaster Jack Posobiec to talk about the administration’s efforts to combat discrimination against “dudes,” specifically White males.

“What I would tell young men who are pissed off is you should absolutely be advocating for more. You should absolutely be demanding more,” he said earlier this month to Posobiec. “But I would also recognize the wins because they are out there.”Yet Vance, a middle-aged, married father of four with a Yale law degree, hardly seems like someone who could rally discontented young male voters back to the GOP.

Some 25 million young men age 18-29 are eligible to vote, roughly split between college and non-college and White and non-White. Mindful of what happened in 2024, Democrats have embraced overt masculinity as a campaign strategy, trash talking their opponents or challenging them to games of football. They have also promised to root out corruption, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries unveiling a “hold the crooks accountable” message this summer.

“Young people are pretty savvy about this stuff, and they are so issue-focused. Young men are looking around, looking at their own economic circumstances, which aren’t great, and seeing if anybody is actually going to speak to their needs and improve their circumstances — and a lot of them aren’t quite sure yet,” Medina said. “They are still kind of shifting around and figuring things out.”Democrats, with their affordability and anti-corruption messages, seem poised to do well with young male voters, reversing GOP gains in 2024.

But retaining these voters in 2028 will mean Democrats have to ver more than snappy slogans from candidates in tight T-shirts. They will have to measurably improve the lives of young men, which means not only talking to them, but also listening to their concerns.