Two headline-grabbing events took place Friday in the race for president. Republican Donald Trump sat down for a three-hour interview with popular podcast host Joe Rogan. And Vice President Kamala Harris held the largest event of her campaign, a massive rally in Houston featuring hometown hero Beyoncé and attended by an estimated 30,000 people.
The Harris-Beyoncé rally will likely go down as a bigger winner than the Trump-Rogan interview.
If the goals of these two events were simply to generate media coverage, then it was just about a tie. But each campaign was seeking to increase vote turnout in this close election. Given those goals, the Harris-Beyoncé rally will likely go down as a bigger winner than the Trump-Rogan interview.
We can’t know until all the votes are counted which event, if either, helped increase turnout — if we even know then. But look at the focus of these two events and ask yourself which one offered a message that would animate more people to get off the couch, head to the polls and wait on long lines to vote. The answer should be obvious. It wasn’t Trump’s interview. (Nor was the rally he held at Madison Square Garden Sunday likely inspire people on the fence to commit to voting for him.)
Trump’s appearance on the top-rated podcast is consistent with his strategy to court young male voters, that is, the “bro vote.” Rogan’s podcast audience of 14 million people is estimated to be 81% male — of which 56% are under 35. According to a recent NBC News poll, Trump leads among male voters in general by 16 points while Harris holds a 14-point lead among female voters. Before you dismiss those gender gaps as a wash, keep in mind that since 1980, women have the bigger percentage of the electorate in presidential elections. In 2020’s presidential election, 54.7% of voters were women.
In the meandering conversation with Rogan, Trump, as he’s done throughout the campaign, peddled the same old lies that the 2020 race was stolen from him and essentially argued that nothing bad would be happening in the entire world if he were president. Serving up his trademark misogyny, Trump called Harris “not smart” and slammed the hosts of ABC’s “The View” who criticized him as “stupid women.”
Mostly low energy throughout, Trump served up nothing new or compelling.
On every level, from energy to policy to message discipline, the contrast with the Harris rally was stark. Unlike Trump’s Rogan interview, where he mentioned a whole laundry list of grievances, Harris’ rally, which drew an estimated 30,000 people to Houston’s Shell Energy Stadium, was laser-focused on one issue: reproductive freedom. (The NBC News poll mentioned above asked respondents, “Is there one issue you feel so strongly about that you will vote for or against a candidate solely on that issue?” At 22%, the top response was “abortion.”)
Texas hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1976, but Harris held her rally there because, her campaign said, Texas has become “ground zero” for the oppressive and dangerous abortion bans Republican-controlled states ushered in after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
This massive rally, which a DJ at times helped turn into a dance party, became powerfully somber when the real-world impact of the abortion bans was discussed. Doctors shared first-person accounts of how Republicans’ abortion bans had caused women to physically suffer, and even die, and how many physicians fear going to jail if they perform abortions.
Then entered Beyoncé, one of the most famous people on the planet. She didn’t sing, but she did perform. That performance was a moving speech where the mother of three said, “I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother.” She further described herself as “a mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies.”
I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother.
When Harris later took the stage, her message was simple: If Trump wins, what’s happening to women in Texas could happen to women nationwide. “If you think you are protected from Trump abortion bans because you live in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New York, California or any state where voters or legislators have protected reproductive freedom, please know: No one is protected,” the vice president declared. She added, “Because a Donald Trump national ban will outlaw abortion in every single state.”
Politico recently reported that Trump has all but given up on expanding his support among women. But in Houston, Harris made a direct plea to men. She spoke to and for men who don’t want to see their wives’ lives or their daughters’ lives put at risk because of these abortion bans. “I see the men here and I thank you!” she said. “The men of America don’t want this.”
Trump, on the Rogan podcast, with his them-versus-us mentality, offered young men something akin to the thrill of their favorite team winning a big game. And nothing more. Trump was not promising to address something for these men that will personally change their lives. The same is true for Trump’s rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden, which was notable for the racism, bigotry and sexism spewed by speakers and Trump’s focus (again) on his personal grievances. As Harris said Monday about Trump’s MSG rally, nothing he says “is actually going to support the aspirations, the dreams and the ambitions of the American people.”
Harris’ message in Houston could not have been more personal for women and everybody who cares about them. These abortion bans are barbaric. States with them are seeing a higher rate of women dying because they can’t access the health care they need.
Trump may be pleased with the media coverage his interview with Rogan attracted — and even Sunday’s rally, since he loves when people are talking about him. But votes win elections. And I think Harris’ focus on reproductive freedom, with a megastar by her side, is the more likely way to turn out, and not turn off, voters.