The Sports Election: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump fight for the bro vote

Maybe it was the “Let’s go, Brandon!” chant that erupted during one of the undercards, or the woman in concession line who kept screaming about how much she hated the Liberals. But sometime last November, as I watched the wild spectacle of UFC 295 at Madison Square Garden, I felt like I had gone to one Donald Trump There was a rally and a fight broke out.

And all this before Trump himself had arrived and, as always, made his heroic entrance into the arena while being flanked by him Tucker Carlson, Kid Rock, and UFC president Dana White. When Trump was shown on the Jumbotron, the crowd of just over 19,000 erupted, so it’s safe to assume at least some of those fans will be back at the Garden later this month when he holds a rally there.

UFC has long been a Trump-friendly ecosystem. Fans and fighters alike tend to distort MAGA, while White is one of the former president’s most vocal supporters. And Trump, never one to shy away from an adoring crowd, has become a fixture at the events. In the spring, two days after a Manhattan jury found him guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records, he joined a support group of thousands at UFC 302 in New Jersey, where fans chanted “We love Trump.” serenaded.

As Trump seeks a big lead among male voters in the 2024 election, he has a slew of athletes on his side, including UFC fighters like Colby Covington, legendary former NFL quarterback Brett Favre, Golfer John Daly, and most recently the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs Harrison Butker. On Saturday, the former Pittsburgh Steelers star Antonio Brown is expected to speak at Trump’s rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, according to a source familiar with the event.

The Republican candidate has also appeared in sports media, appearing on Tuesday’s episode of Bussin’ with the boys, a Barstool Sports podcast hosted by former NFL players Will Compton And Taylor Lewan. “We wouldn’t be here today without Dana White,” Lewan said, recalling meeting Trump “a few times at UFC.”

“When you talk about Trump, it’s very on-brand for him to show up at a UFC [event],, Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian and senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs told me. “It didn’t start with him toying with the idea of ​​running for president. That’s who he is, and that’s also a way of speaking directly to his base.”

All the fights and football are consistent with Trump’s macho political identity, which has led to the emergence of his male-dominated coalition. Polls have consistently shown that Trump maintains a significant lead among men as vice president Kamala Harris has a big lead among female voters. The gender gap has moved the final stretch of the campaign into the sports arena, as Harris and her vice presidential candidate Tim Waltz hold a late-inning rally to lure male voters away from Trump JD Vance.

Last month, the Democratic campaign announced “Athletes for Harris,” an initiative headlined Magic Johnson, Billie Jean King, Steve Kerr, Dawn Staley, and more, with the express aim of connecting with young men. And while both campaigns have saturated NFL, college football and MLB playoff broadcasts with advertising, Democrats took their message to the games themselves on Sunday, hoisting banners or skywriting over NFL stadiums in four battleground states. Harris’ campaign has also sought an audience on sports-focused platforms. The Democratic candidate appeared on All the smoke, a podcast hosted by former NBA players Stephen Jackson And Matt Barnes, as First Lord Doug Emhoff sat for an interview with a long-time sports commentator Dan Le Batard that was posted online on Tuesday.