Why are younger men increasingly voting for the populist right and younger women, the environmental left? Rosie Campbell on a new gender divide in the Western world.
This month’s local elections in the United Kingdom have big implications: The populist-right Reform UK party surged, winning 10 local councils, 677 council seats, and two mayoral contests; they also picked up a fifth seat in Britain’s Parliament, in a special election. “We are now the opposition party in the U.K. to Labour, and the Tories are a waste of space,” party leader Nigel Farage said. Days later, polls showed Reform leading not just the Tories but Labour, as well—by an unprecedented 10 points. Today, Reform is remarkably successful—and conspicuously male: Twenty-nine percent of British men consider voting for Reform, but only 19 percent of women do.
The discrepancy isn’t unique to the U.K. In Sweden, the conservative-nationalist Sweden Democrats have nearly three times more supporters among men than among women. In the United States, exit polls from last year’s presidential election show 55 percent of men voted for Donald Trump, while only 45 percent of women did. For years, as Daniel Cox has discussed here in The Signal, more and more young American men have been questioning whether the government plays too big a role in their lives—and too big a role in promoting systemic biases against them—while women are becoming, Cox says, “increasingly liberal.” And the trend extends across the West: The political outlooks of men and women—particularly men and women in the Millennials and Z generations—are becoming increasingly polarized. Why?
Rosie Campbell is a professor of politics at King’s College London. Campbell says that ever since the populist right emerged as a real force in Western politics some two decades ago, the parties representing it have relied heavily on the support of older men. Now, something new is happening: These same parties have started winning more votes from younger men, as younger women move more toward left-wing and environmentally focused parties. Meanwhile, younger men now think the future will be worse for men. And women think it’ll be worse for women. There’s something going on with the political outlook of young men and women, Campbell says—something that goes beyond their voting patterns …
Gustav Jönsson: What patterns stand out among men voting for the populist right?
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