How Trump lost the bro vote

At a UFC event on the White House lawn, a reporter asked young men whether Donald Trump was still cool. The answers were blunt. "No," said one. "I'm disappointed," said another. "He's not living up to what he said he was gonna do." The numbers back them up: in 2024, men under 30 preferred Trump to Kamala Harris by about one percentage point. By mid-2025, his approval rating among the same group was underwater by 55 points. A stunning collapse, and one that the White House seems to be trying to reverse with events like this one.

The UFC event as a reconnection attempt

The reporter went to Washington, D.C. for Trump's UFC event on the White House lawn to talk to young men directly. The first thing he found was that most were there for the fighting, not the president. "UFC all the way," one attendee said. Another explained: "UFC has a lot of culture, a lot of different people from a lot of different places, and that's what America is to me." But the political angle was impossible to ignore. Trump has long used UFC to pitch himself to young men, and the attendees acknowledged it. "He just knows how to advertise himself to younger people," one said. Another pointed to "masculinity" as part of the appeal.