How Trump and Vance's tour of dude influencers might help them win

In June, Trump’s campaign posted a tiktok of Trump and influencer Logan Paul. The two stood glaring at each other, their noses inches apart.

And then something rare happened: Trump laughed.

Both of them dissolved into laughs, in fact – Paul gave a delighted, “Yo, yo, I’m scared, bro!” There was even something approaching a hug.

The point of all this was to promote a Trump interview on Paul’s podcast and YouTube show.

It was all part of Trump and JD Vance’s months-long tour of podcasters and influencers — almost all of them men, many of them young.

The conversations are often friendly and chatty. In multiple interviews, Trump has shot the breeze with hosts about the UFC and boxing.

In one memorable exchange, Paul asked Trump if he had ever been in a fistfight. Trump’s answer, after a long pause: “Probably not.”

According to the Trump campaign, the goal with this media strategy is simply to reach as many people as possible…not specifically men.

But…that IS who they’re getting, and it comes as young men have pulled hard toward Trump. That has opened up a gender gap among young voters – who just so happen to have low voting rates. So maybe, the thinking seems to go, a few conversations about UFC can give the young men specifically a kick out the door.

Expanding their reach...mostly to men

Trump and Vance have appeared on nine podcasts, according to the campaign. Of those, market research firm Edison Research had data on seven.

Six of those seven have majority-male listenership, and five of those have at least three-quarters male listenership, with audiences that also skew mostly young. Meanwhile, only one podcast — Phil in the Blanks, with Doctor Phil McGraw — has majority women listeners.

What it amounts to is potential new