MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Men are obviously a big chunk of the American electorate, making up just under half of voters in our presidential elections. But campaigns do not often reach out to them as men. At least on the Democratic side, that changed when Kamala Harris became the party's likely nominee. Just last night, organizers say nearly 200,000 people joined a White Dudes for Harris phone call. NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben reports as part of her series on men in the 2024 election.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Film producer Will Packer was one of many voices rallying support for Kamala Harris on a recent call aimed at Black men.
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WILL PACKER: You all that are here, all 20, 30,000 of y'all that are here, you understand how important this is. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to give what you can. Somebody asks how much? What can you give? What you got?
KURTZLEBEN: In the end, according to organizers, that Win With Black Men call drew in 53,000 people, giving $1.3 million over four hours.
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PACKER: The other side has a base that no matter what, they are always riding for theirs. They are counting on us to not have a base that comes out and shows up for this sister.
KURTZLEBEN: Since Kamala Harris got into the presidential race, calls aimed at Black, white and Asian American women were organized to quickly amass money and volunteers for her abbreviated campaign. But alongside that, something interesting happened. Groups popped up explicitly to organize men for Democrats. Besides Win With Black Men, there's Men for Harris, White Dudes for Harris and Dads for Kamala. Often, gender-specific organizing is aimed at women. Think Moms Demand Action or Moms for Liberty. But...
JACKSON KATZ: Because Harris is a woman, her presence in the race makes gender visible in a way that it wasn't with Biden.
KURTZLEBEN: Jackson Katz is a writer and cofounder of the Young Men Research Initiative, a super PAC aimed at energizing young progressive men.
KATZ: And so you'll see things like Men for Harris in a way that you wouldn't have seen Men for Biden 'cause that would strike people as very odd and even redundant.
KURTZLEBEN: It's an acknowledgment that men are the default in American politics, meaning their gender often goes unnoticed. Of course, there are still appeals to men. At this year's RNC, the testosterone was flowing. For example, when Terry Bollea, also known as Hulk Hogan, took the stage.
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HULK HOGAN: And at the end of the day, with our leader up there, my hero, that gladiator, we're going to bring America back together one real American at a time, brother.
KURTZLEBEN: Men as a group vote substantially more Republican than women, and men continue to be a big part of Donald Trump's base. So Democrats have been considering for years how to pull men to their side. Multiple organizers told me that these groups create a permission structure for men to support a Democratic woman at the top of the ticket. Here's Katz again.
KATZ: If you have men who are recognizably successful as men within the traditional terms say, we're supporting Kamala Harris, then it makes it easier for men who are more self-conscious about that identification.
KURTZLEBEN: Bakari Sellers agrees. He was one organizer of the Win With Black Men call.
BAKARI SELLERS: The power of being able to go back to your barber shop and saying, I was on a call with 50,000 men for Harris, that starts a totally different conversation.
KURTZLEBEN: Sellers also said, however, that he thinks Black men feel an additional duty to show up for Harris.
SELLERS: This is our time to show that we can stand up with her. Black women are always the backbone of the Democratic Party, we hear, we hear, we hear. And we're like, no, they are, but we're here too. And we're going to do everything we can.
KURTZLEBEN: Of course, different messages work on different groups. Mark Linton, cofounder of Men for Harris, talked about making the pitch to white men using historic terms.
MARK LINTON: This is that moment where white men are going to actually step up and say, this is actually our moment to really begin to turn a page and write a new chapter in America's racial history.
KURTZLEBEN: All of which is to say that men are not a monolith. But across all these groups, it's clear that participants are thinking hard about their own identities as men. Here's Mohan Sivaloganathan on a Dads for Kamala call.
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MOHAN SIVALOGANATHAN: We're here not only because we're reimagining politics or reimagining the White House, but we're reimagining what it means to be a dad. And we're retiring that tired stereotype of the dad who yells for everything but stands up for nothing.
KURTZLEBEN: So while Kamala Harris could make history this year because of her gender, her presence is making men's gender a bigger part of the conversation as well. Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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