Post-Trump GOP Needs Young Men, Heritage Panelists Say

OXON HILL, Md.—Republicans must win back young men and deliver on affordability if they hope to win in 2028, prominent conservative commentators said.

“We are not going to be able to have a coalition that is dependent anymore on the idea that Donald Trump is on the ballot,” Ben Domenech, opinion editor of The Daily Wire, said Wednesday at The Heritage Foundation’s conference for conservatives, The Forum.

“This was the last election where we had that,” he added. “I think that adapting to a new reality where that is no longer the case particularly involves reaching young men because they were animated by him in the Biden context.”

Daily Signal President Rob Bluey moderated the panel discussion on opportunities for conservatives after the midterm elections, appearing with Domenech; Kristen Soltis Anderson, founder and pollster at Echelon Insights; and political commentator Mary Katharine Ham.

The panelists acknowledged where the GOP fell short in the elections: losing ground with young men, poor messaging, and failing to address affordability.

“I think the fact that conservatives did as well as they did at state ballot initiatives, including in shocking ways in new states, should at least give you some hope that a part of the problem here is the people who were running were not saying the things that they were going to do,” Domenech said.

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Ham warned that the GOP’s outreach to young men needs to go beyond celebrity endorsements and offer real policy, mentioning UFC President Dana White’s recent appearance with Trump at a White House press briefing.

“This is a campaign tactic that works, associating with UFC, which I love, and Dana White is interesting and successful. But when you talk to young men in this moment and you’re in power, Dana White and the press briefing is fun, but it’s shenanigans. It’s not bringing the message that you’re serving them in policy,” Ham said.

Anderson, who described young men as “ideologically flexible,” argued that the party’s 2024 gains with them were never solidified.

“Conservatives patted themselves on the back correctly for doing so well with young men in the 2024 election that they have reversed some of the ties of young people drifting to the left,” Anderson said. “The reality is that those voters did not become conservatives; they became open to hearing what conservatives had to say.”

“And I think the last two years has not given them enough to hold them in the tent,” she added. “It’s going to take very concerted effort, giving them not just messaging substance that says, ‘Here’s what we’re doing to make your life better, to help you form those families, to help you form those bonds, to help you buy that home, to help you have that opportunity.’”

The panelists also discussed the importance of new White House chief of staff Stephen Miller in winning back these key voters and the need for the GOP to win back Latinos in Texas.

“[Trump’s inroads with Latinos] has completely flipped back in just two years,” Anderson said. “I think if you’re going to win back Texas, this comes back around to that conversation of winning Latino voters, and it’s something that the conservative movement has done within the last two years. It’s possible to do it again, but it will be necessary to do more than that.”