Will Donald Trump’s brothers show up?

Hohm to a University, Madison is a left-leaning city in a swing state. But if you found yourself at the Kollege Klub on a recent Saturday night, where Sean Paul’s “Get Busy” told his patrons to get rid of that thing, you wouldn’t know it. Man throws Maga Hats in the crowd from Bros Frat Brite. The meeting was chaired by the Nelk Boys, a group of extremely popular YouTubers who film trivial pranks. They are fans of Donald Trump and have been on their podcast three times. This was a voting party. However, the vote seemed like a concept plan compared to downing vodka Red Bulls and shackling with the Swedish House Mafia.

To increase his votes, Trump has two options. He can tone down his message to win over traditional Republicans, the kind of voters who supported Nikki Haley in the GOP primary. And he doesn’t – as his smearing of Puerto Ricans at his Madison Square Garden rally attests. Rather, it was Kamala Harris who moved to the center and participated in her election campaign with the former Republican congresswoman, Liz Cheney, a staunch conservative.

Instead, Trump is courting people who do not reliably vote, but would vote for him if they could be persuaded to vote at all: he is courting the brother. He has called the Nelk Boys “the hottest guys.” He skipped discussions with Ms. Harris but made time for podcast conversations with wrestler Logan Paul. Theo Vaughn, a mullet comedian; And last week, Joe Rogan, the kind of gorilla with 15 million listens. The center of gravity in this macho galaxy is the Ultimate Fighting Championship, a mixed martial arts outfit of which Trump is a huge fan. Its boss, Dana White, speaks (or shouts) at Maga Parades.

Trump also appeared alongside rappers and reggaeton singers with names like Icewear Vezzo, Sleepy Hallow and Anuel AA. Nobody has the power of Beyoncé or Bad Bunny, who is from Puerto Rico and endorsed Harris after the Garden March. But they dedicated a following and created a permission structure for black and Latino audiences to make a decision that broke with tradition. Trump’s forays here may seem contradictory at times. At a rally in Las Vegas, he introduced reggaeton star Nicky Jam this way: “You know Nicky? She’s hot!” Nicky is the “it” who canceled his support after the Garden event.

Bro like Mr. Trump. They evaluate him better in terms of economics and find him funny: less evil, more anti-hero, says John Della Volpe of Harvard’s Kennedy School. An 18-year-old today would have been nine when Trump announced his first candidacy; There is little memory or nostalgia of pre-collapse politics. Brandon Maley, the 24-year-old Republican Party chairman in Dane County, which includes Madison, says his congregation feels alienated by social movements. “Hypocrisy like ‘Queers for Palestine’? That doesn’t resonate much with men.”

In 2020, Trump won 41% of men ages 18-29 (compared to 32% of women). This year, his share of the vote could rise by several percentage points. Just over 12 million men in that age group participated last time, so any small improvement could give Trump hundreds of thousands of votes. It also works best with black and Hispanic men. However, this strategy is generally risky. Offsetting losses among college-educated suburbanites who vote reliably requires gains among people who do so inconsistently and at lower rates. Only half of eligible young people voted in 2020.

The challenge is to convince people who are less confident or interested in politics—those who are unlikely to consider voting influential—that it is worth the effort. In Della Volpe polls, 55% of young people who support Ms. Harris say they will “definitely” vote, compared with 38% of their pro-Trump counterparts. At the same time, young women are shifting significantly away from the Democratic Party and moving more in that direction.

Trump was able to accomplish this feat in 2016 by appealing to another insular group: white working-class men. At that time too, his ground game was weak. This year in Wisconsin, he outsourced door knocking and phone banking to groups run by Elon Musk and Charlie Kirk, a millennial activist. This effort appears to be disorganized. Ben Wikler, the state’s Democratic chairman, claims his party is “running circles” around Republicans when it comes to voting processes.

Less informed voters care about the cost of living and tend to choose candidates they think they know and relate to. A recent study in American Political Science Review It found that in 2016, viewers of “The Apprentice” were more likely to choose Trump in the primaries. The authors concluded that entertainment media, which appear to be apolitical, offer a “unique route into public consciousness.” This is equally true of Trump’s podcasts and his TikTok posts (where he has twice as many followers as Harris).

Many Americans curse Trump. However, many share the view of the brother in Madison, who told your correspondent that America “at its simplest, is a corporation” and that Trump is the president. ■

Correction (November 3, 2024): The original version of this article misstated the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Apologies.

Stay up to date on US politics with The we In short, our daily newsletter with quick analysis of the most important election stories, Checks and Balance, a weekly note from our Lexington columnist on the state of American democracy and the issues that matter to voters.