A CNN host could not believe her eyes when she saw the latest numbers on how badly Donald Trump is now doing among a key support base that helped him sail to victory in the 2024 polls.
“Oh, GOSH!” Kate Bolduan exclaimed on Thursday after network data guru Harry Enten showed her just how far the president’s net approval among young men has plummeted since the presidential election. “I was literally about to ask you if that was a typo!”
It was not. Trump’s net approval among young men, a one-point majority of whom voted for him in November 2024, has just hit -55.
Enten seemed to bristle a little at the idea that his numbers might be off. “No, that is not a typo,” he said. “Me and my crack crew spend many hours on those slides, and we can tell you that is not a typo.”
He then hammered the findings home. “That is a 56-point move against the president of the United States among young men who helped put him over the top in the election, and now he is very much struggling with them,” he went on.
Bolduan and Enten had been discussing an upcoming UFC event at the White House. UFC chief Dana White is a fervent Trump supporter.
“Maybe that’s part of the reason why he wants to put on an event like this, to try to connect with some of them,” Enten said.
The fights are supposedly being staged to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—even if the date has been rather conspicuously moved up by three weeks to coincide with the president’s 80th birthday.
A broader cross-section of voters has given the Democratic Party an almost 7-point lead ahead of this year’s crucial midterm elections. Whether the fights can help Trump salvage his disastrous approval ratings among young men remains an open question.
“What a lot of the polling suggests is that UFC right now is like the number four sport in America,” Enten reflected. “It’s football, baseball, basketball, and then UFC. It’s huge.”
White should quickly claw back the $60 million that UFC is pouring into the one-off event, given it pulled in more than $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2024.
