After two successive women losing the presidential race — and with the GOP increasingly claiming a testosterone-fueled “manosphere” — many Democratic insiders are beginning to worry that the party is short on T. Even its successful new faces, like Jon Ossoff and James Talarico, it still can be too smooth. (This may explain why a recent Instagram post from @Democrats it showed Talarico mumbling meat.)
They are worried: Where are the male Democrats? They believe the American electorate needs a man, someone who is notsmooth,” who can drinking beer and watching video games and eating hamburgers and having sex without a condomWHO”it has the strong character of a person who makes his life outside,” who will bring the youth back to the Democratic party brother.
But wait: In fact, the newest icon of Democratic power fits the bill almost perfectly. He is Carhartt-wear, marathon racefull beard man who likes burn down. He is struggling with the Knicks and soon he did basketball campaign ad. While campaigning last year, he toured the world of the “manosphere” podcast and easily exchanged tidbits about bench pressing and publicity. Analysts describe his politics using testosterone-forward metaphors “muscular,” “power broker,” and “king.”
This is, of course, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani – who can go directly with President Donald Trumpwears a helluva suit, and channels more public energy into Bernie-bro politics more effectively than anyone under 80. “His vision, whether you like it or not, is very bold and in-your-face,” which is traditionally masculine, says Pawan Dhingra, a sociologist there. Amherst College.
“Zohran is a great person,” streaming star and approved brother Hasan Piker said of Mamdani in 2025 interview with the New York Times. “He’s just a dude, and it’s good to be a dude sometimes.”
So, why isn’t Mamdani a new democrat of masculinity?
Instead, the pro-male debate has largely pegged Graham Platner, the controversial Democratic nominee for the Maine Senate seat, as the future of the party. Ken Klippenstein told Platner approvingly as a “marty, ex-Marine polluter” as opposed to a “Harvard-educated McKinsey consultant” who feels he represents the Democratic candidate. Sebastian Junger wrote that Platner “doesn’t vote for a ‘Democrat'” (a good thing, in Junger’s estimation) because “he might be the only Democratic candidate or congressman I wouldn’t want to mess with.” James Carville, who it has become sound for his faith The image of the Democrats is very feminine and careless, mused that while Platner may be “confused” from his time in the war, perhaps “we need a combat veteran on that Senate floor who is laid back.”
But while Platner has yet to prove that he can win the general election, Mamdani has. What’s more, he’s achieved that elusive goal that Democrats always pursue: He’s proven he can connect with Trump’s men and voters while energizing the Democratic base. In New York City Mayoral Election 2025registrations are increasing, turnout at the general election reached a 50-year high, and exit polls showed that he received exactly half of the male vote – more than any other candidate – along with 9 percent of Trump 2024 voters. Earlier this week, Mamdani’s efforts to get out of the polls he helped push three Socialists of America allies through their primaries, in a clear demonstration of his political prowess.
Mamdani and Platner are both male. Both have crowdfunding platforms. And both have run as outsiders (and one of them has won the general election). So why only one of them keeps showing up think pieces about why Democrats need to embrace and attract men?
The real issue, Dhingra says, is that when people talk about getting men to vote Democratic, “there’s a male vote and there’s a male vote.” Those are two different things.
The male vote yes we can confidently say that Mamdani won 2025. The male polls are what the pundits are talking about when they say Democrats need to win over men, and that’s the basis for more vibes.
“We have a concept of masculinity that is kind of white, middle-class, muscular, patriarchal to some degree,” Dhingra says. When they talk about the male vote, political analysts and strategists look for evidence of exactly that. white masculinity, even if they don’t say so directly.
Platner, with his military background, embrace of guns, and manual labor, fits that white working-class image, despite having a wealthy family. Cosmopolitan Mamdani, who attended a private liberal arts college and was a college activist and comedy rapper in her youth, doesn’t. Even his passion for sports has decreased a little, Dhringa says. Mamdani is a soccer legend, and in the United States, soccer is said to be suspiciously European. “The fact that they are sports but not like that it’s a metaphor,” Dhringa says. “She gets male votes, but she’s not a man.”
Dhringa, author of a forthcoming book Success Won’t Save Us: How Asian Americans Can Fight White Supremacyhe sees this issue as part of a larger pattern. “We have repeatedly reduced masculinity to white masculinity and femininity to white femininity,” he says. Outside of politics, conversations about the masculinity crisis tend to focus more on the problems faced by white men, such as high suicide rates. “We’re only talking about the plight of white men,” Dhingra says. “Does anyone know about the dating experience of Black men? No. We know that white men suffer from this.”
Dhringra points to mass incarceration, which disproportionately affects Black people and is often talked about as a race problem. “It wasn’t a coming-of-age crisis,” he says of these discussions. “But now that more white men are ending up in prison or exhibiting these other negative social indicators, now we have a crisis of adulthood.”
It is certainly possible that at least part of this disconnect is about the policies of Mamdani and Platner. For some commentators who are particularly concerned about Democratic masculinity, particularly Carville, support for Israel is a necessity. But Mamdani has repeatedly repeated he emphasized his belief in Israel’s right to existand Platner, who opposes sending US aid to Israel (and wore a Nazi tattoo for years), is not Israel’s greatest ally. And Carville’s worries are not all: Klippenstein, another fan of Platner, has been enthusiastic about “Magic” of Mamdani – not necessarily just about his personality.
And while Mamdani’s criticism of Israel may bother some Democrats, it speaks to a new generation of voters Democrats are theoretically trying to woo. On the contrary, Platner’s campaign has suffered one scandal after another, including alleged “disturbing” behavior. and old friends. His supporters argue that such a past adds to his credibility – but it remains a weak point for a party that it still depends on women to power its voting baseregardless of how much effort she puts into courting men.
Calling all the political frailties (generously) even, it is highly likely that race plays a role in the Mamdani conundrum. But Dhringa says Mamdani’s strange absence from the masculinity conversation has more to do with not being white in general than with his specific Indian heritage and Ugandan upbringing. Dhringa says that 20 years ago, Latin American Asian men were used to being stupid and feminine, but their image is now more complicated. He mentions the multitude of Latin America’s most powerful CEOs such as Google and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, as well as political figures such as Democrats’ Mamdani and Republicans’ Kash Patel.
“20 years ago I had a very simple answer that I would give” about how Americans view South Asian men, he says. “Now I don’t know.”
Vox reached out to Carville and Klippenstein for comment and did not hear back from them. Junger declined to comment.
Finally, the discourse of masculinity has other limitations: It also relegates masculinity to a violent, irrational form. “Masculinity has different dimensions to it, and one man never encompasses all dimensions,” Dhringa says. Masculine men don’t have to be lonely and withdrawn like John Wayne in the old West. They can be leaders who use their masculine charisma to unite and protect other people.
That is the kind of masculinity that Mamdani represents. Democrats have a chance to embrace him as the avatar of the party, try to increase his confidence and swagger to increase other candidates, learn from the strategies he has employed to connect with the base they want to grow. They have the opportunity to find and develop talent in other Mamdanis: men who may not fit the profile of white workers, but who know how to hang with a dude when necessary.
