Putting abortion rights front and center in her campaign, Kamala Harris thought she found a winning formula in courting women voters. But it was Donald Trump who found victory, running up the margins on American men — particularly young men. That young people as a whole tend to be more liberal was no deterrent to a US presidential campaign that capitalized on youth masculinity — tapping into interests such as fighting sports and cryptocurrency, as well as making appearances on male-dominated podcasts. “If you are a man in this country and you don’t vote for Donald Trump, you’re not a man,” said Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist long focused on the youth vote. Donald Trump won the presidency with 54 percent of men voting for the Republican, up slightly from the 51 percent that supported him in 2020, according to exit polling by NBC. But what raised eyebrows was among younger voters aged 18-29, where 49 percent of men voted Trump — shattering previous images of young people generally leaning left. As Elon Musk — tech bro, wealthy businessman and major Trump backer — put it on Election Day: “the cavalry has arrived.” Trump’s gains come as a gender divide makes itself felt among young people at-large: women under 29 had a massive 61-37 Harris-Trump split. “There is a lot of latent sexism in the US electorate, male and female members alike,” Tammy Vigil, an associate professor of media science at the University of Boston, told AFP. “Trump’s campaign gave people permission to indulge their worst impulses and embrace divisiveness of many sorts.”