Why Kamala Harris Needs Joe Rogan to Fix Her Male Voter Problem

Kamala Harris is reportedly planning on appearing on Joe Rogan’s hugely popular podcast, as polls suggest the vice president needs a boost in winning over male voters from Donald Trump.
Harris’ campaign is said to have discussed the with Rogan’s team plans for the vice president to appear on The Joe Rogan Experience before Election Day in November, but nothing has been confirmed, reported Reuters on Monday.
Rogan’s podcast is the most popular in the U.S., regularly attracting millions of predominantly male listeners and viewers. Harris’ potential plan to appear on the online show arrives as surveys frequently suggest Trump is outperforming Harris among male voters, which could prove vital in the neck-and-neck race.
Harris, who is looking to be the first female U.S. president in history, has recently embarked on a media blitz of talk shows and podcasts over more traditional news outlets. This has included an appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast, which is very popular with young women.
Trump has also indicated that he will soon be a guest on Rogan’s podcast, but offered no specific details. The former president has recently appeared on several podcasts that aim to be popular with young male audiences, such as Flagrant with comedians Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh.
Newsweek has contacted Harris’ campaign and Rogan’s team for comment via email.
Lakshya Jain, cofounder of Split Ticket, an election analysis website, said that Harris has made “minimal gains” among male voters since she entered the 2024 race and therefore an appearance on Rogan’s podcast could improve her numbers.
“Democrats are absolutely going to hate it, but Harris needs Rogan way more than the other way around,” Jain posted on X, formerly Twitter.
“She has a problem with male voters and a Rogan podcast appearance gives her exposure that *nothing* else would.”
A Pew Research research survey of 4,025 registered voters, conducted September 30 to October 6, showed that Harris is marginally ahead of Trump by 48 percent to 47 in a full ballot of presidential candidates, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.9 percentage points.
The results also show that there is a significant gender gap between Trump and Harris. More than half of male voters (51 percent) prefer Trump to Harris (43 percent). For female voters, the results are essentially mirrored with Harris at 52 percent against Trump’s 43 percent.
Other surveys have also shown that Trump is the preferred candidate among male voters heading into November’s election.
A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll of 3,145 registered voters, conducted from October 11 to 13, revealed Harris with a 1-point lead over Trump overall (47 percent to 46), with Trump ahead among male voters by 49 percent to 46. Harris has a lead among female voters in the poll, 50 percent to 43.
There was also a 16-point gap in favor of Trump (56 percent to 40) among male voters in a recent NBC News poll.
This year’s presidential election could see the biggest gender divide in history, according to polling and experts interviewed by Newsweek back in August.
Kellen Habibelahy, chairman of the High School Republican Federation of Virginia, said Harris’ key campaign policies of protecting abortion access and reproductive rights are failing to appeal to male voters.
“She spends most of her time talking about abortion but neglects kitchen table issues like the fentanyl crisis killing tens of thousands of Americans, the crisis at our border, or the fact that many Americans simply cannot afford groceries or gas,” Habibelahy told Newsweek in August.
“One of the biggest concerns I keep hearing is that many young people are worried they won’t be able to afford a home.”
Jackson Katz, an author and expert on gender violence prevention education, previously told Newsweek.
“Democrats have been very poor in their outreach to men, especially young men who live online. Throughout the virtual universe, on social media, podcasts and the misogynous manosphere, the message they’ve heard for years is ‘the Democrats hate men, especially white men.’
“It’s presented as obvious, an objective statement of fact. I have long argued that the Dems need to respond to this aggressively and speak directly to men, including young men, and say ‘we see you, we hear you and we care about you.'”
In the 2020 election, Trump only narrowly beat Joe Biden among male voters by 50 percent to 48, according to Pew Research. Biden had an 11-point lead among women (55 percent to 44).
In the 2016 election, Trump won men by 11 points (52 percent to 41) over Hillary Clinton. The former secretary of state had a 15-point lead among women voters (54 percent to 39).
In March, Bloomberg reported that Rogan’s show is by far the most popular podcast hosted on Spotify with around 14.5 million followers on the streaming platform.
This figure is nearly three times more than the next most followed program, TED Talks Daily on 5 million followers, with the aforementioned Call Her Daddy third with 3.7 million.
Rogan’s audience and listenership was around 71 percent male, with the average age of his listeners being 24, according to 2020 analysis from Media Monitors.
The Joe Rogan Experience also has 17.4 million subscribers on YouTube.