A year ago, Donald Trump won a transformative election victory, sweeping all seven swing states, the popular vote, and making all fifty states redder than they were in 2020.
How did he do it?
By motivating men, especially young men, and sports fans who were fed up with the madness of men winning women’s sports championships. I wrote about the victory in my new book: “Balls”, which was released on Tuesday.
The book discusses Trump’s landslide victory, but also asks an important question as we look ahead: now that Trump can unfortunately no longer run for re-election, how can Republicans ensure that the Trump MAGA coalition extends and even grows beyond his own presidency?
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In 2024, the two most conservative voting groups in America were male seniors and young men under thirty.
This has never happened before in our lives.
It was an overnight cultural transformation.
OutKick founder Clay Travis and the cover of his new book, “Balls: How Trump, Young Men, and Sports Saved America.” (FNC)
Trump also gained record support among white, black, Asian and Hispanic men, but that same momentum did not extend to 2025. Indeed, Tuesday’s voting results paint an ominous picture of what 2026 and 2028 could look like if young men are not motivated to show up and vote like they did in 2024.
Look at the numbers: In 2024, Trump received 1.968 million votes in New Jersey and 2.075 million votes in Virginia. Although he lost both states by narrow margins to Kamala Harris – by about 5% – he received more votes than Virginia’s Democratic candidate for governor, Abigail Spanberger – who won Virginia with 1.961 million votes – and New Jersey’s Democratic candidate for governor, Mikie Sherrill – who won New Jersey with 1.792 million votes.
Abigail Spanberger, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate from Virginia, celebrates as she takes the stage during her election rally at the Greater Richmond Convention Center on Nov. 4, 2025. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
So how did both Democratic gubernatorial candidates comfortably win the election despite receiving fewer votes than Trump did a year ago in their states? Yes, partly because it was an off-year cycle and overall turnout was trending down, but they won comfortably because about 600,000 Trump voters didn’t show up to vote in 2025 but who did show up to vote in 2024.
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Who are these voters?
Young men, sports fans, blue-collar workers, the Trump MAGA base who will support Trump if he’s on the ballot, but won’t show up if he’s not on the ballot.
Representative Mikie Sherrill, Democratic gubernatorial candidate for New Jersey, during an election night event in East Brunswick, New Jersey on Tuesday, November 4, 2025. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
So will these voters return in 2026 and in 2028 if Trump is not on the ballot? That depends on how well future Republican candidates speak to these voters. Some of you may think I’m crazy for telling you this, but once the 2026 midterm elections are over, expect a turnaround so fast it’ll make your head spin—the Democrats in 2027 will all argue that Trump’s unique political gifts end with him, that MAGA is over without Trump as leader. Yes, from “He’s Hitler!” to “He’s the most talented Republican president in all our lifetimes,” almost overnight.
I’m telling you, it’s coming.
Because Democrats have come to rely on Trump as a political unicorn, a candidate so talented that only he could drive a coalition as substantial if he won in 2024.
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So what should Republicans do to expand and even increase Trump’s appeal to young men? I think it’s a combination of three things: combining the policy and the personal, which Trump has a unique talent for.
1. On the policy front, the 2024 election was about the economy, the border and crime
It was as easy as EBC.
Trump won the arguments on all three of these fronts. So far, Trump 2.0 has ended the border as an issue by ending illegal immigration and driving crime to record lows in many states and cities. His challenge on the economy is that Biden was so bad that it will take time to clean up his mess. With record high stock prices and record low gas prices, Trump leaves us all with stock market assets and all of us needing to fill up our tanks.
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But there is lingering anger about how much goods cost. Even I feel it every time I buy a Chick-fil-A meal for my family and it costs more than $50. For fast food, really!
Prices rose so quickly under President Joe Biden that sticker shock is still real even in 2025. Trump has halted the rapid price increases and, in the case of some purchases, such as gasoline, even lowered them than under Biden, but that bitter aftertaste of inflation will take time to wear off.
So far that has not been the case.
2. Focus on men in women’s sports
Is this the most important issue in the country?
No.
But it crystallizes the absurdity of the Democratic policies for young men and sports fans that fueled Trump’s record victory in 2024.
If you believe a man should be able to win a women’s sports championship, how can I trust your opinion on anything? As I wrote in “Balls”, this issue, combined with EBC, won Trump the election in 2024.
I think that will still be the message in 2026 because, amazingly, Democrats across the country have doubled and tripled their defense of men in women’s sports.
This problem isn’t going away.
3. HAVE FUN and be entertaining.
My two favorite moments of the 2024 campaign were when Trump dressed up as a McDonald’s worker and a garbage collector and rode around in a garbage truck.
Was it absurd and ridiculous?
Naturally.
But the most important gift Trump has for which he doesn’t get any credit is this: HE’S FUNNY!
Yes, politics is serious. But they should also be fun. Trump is a happy warrior and happy warriors win.
The two most successful Republican presidents of my lifetime were Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. Both were professional entertainers in many ways. They knew how to cut through the noise and were authentic in the way they did it.
Trump isn’t perfect, none of us are, but he is the most comfortable president any of us have ever seen in his own skin, and he has tremendous political instincts.
You can spend a hundred million on an ad campaign and not get the free media attention that Trump got by scooping out fries and talking to voters at the drive-thru in Pennsylvania. That style of doing politics is unbeatable. Heck, I’d say the best version of Trump is the one you get at fast food restaurants. He really likes to get out and interact with people. That is a skill that cannot be taught, but it can be imitated.
We used to ask the question: which candidate would you rather have a beer with? Trump doesn’t drink, as he jokingly says, can you imagine what he would say if he drank? – he is authentic and real. With artificial intelligence taking over much of the country, I believe authenticity will become the main political key to the empire.
Young people in particular, steeped in the artificiality of social media constantly presented to them on their phones, have an innate sense of when they are being tested and marketed to; they smell it better than older voters.
If you want them to show up and support you, you have to earn their trust.
That’s why I truly believe the election was over when it came to male voters when Trump was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania.
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At that moment, having escaped death by within an inch, Trump, whose critics had labeled him a phony, stood up and shouted, “Fight, fight, fight!” three times. At that point, the elections for male voters were over.
It was the bravest presidential moment of my life.
But it was also one of the most authentic.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is seen with blood on his face, surrounded by Secret Service agents, as he is taken off stage during a campaign event at Butler Farm Show Inc. in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024. (Getty Images/Rebecca Droke)
In times of great danger, your own personal character is revealed. In those dangerous milliseconds, Trump became a legend and won the election.
He proved once and for all that he had it”Balls.”
And so far, no Democrat has proven that this is the case.
As long as that remains the case, the Republicans will not lose any men.
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That’s why the best example of an oxymoron in America today isn’t “jumbo shrimp,” it’s “male Democrat.”
Because after all, there are certainly big shrimp, but there are still no male Democrats.
Clay Travis is the author of the new book “Balls: How Trump, Young Men and Sports Fans Saved America.” Buy it here.
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