I visited JD Vance’s hometown. Here’s what I learned about young male voters

Beneath an intricate stained-glass window, I am sitting next to pastor Jeff Wilder, talking about lonely men. The clergyman is the first to say he looks a little different from your average Protestant preacher; his thick beard and arm tattoos might not instantly place him leading a flock here. But his assessment of the presidential race is insightful and nuanced – not least because his church is in Middletown, Ohio, where Trump’s vice-presidential pick JD Vance grew up.

Middletown, a small city in the rust belt, was thrust into national prominence after Vance, by then a Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist, published his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, in 2016. The book would pave the way for his move into politics.

Vance is of course a polarising figure in this election, in part owing to misogynist comments targeting “childless cat ladies”. But pastor Wilder takes exception to something else, too.

Oliver Laughland talks to pastor Jeff Wilder. Photograph: Tom Silverstone/The Guardian

“The Republican party right now is doing a really wonderful job of faking relationships,” he says. The emails he receives from the Trump campaign – which he signed up to for research purposes – often start with exuberant personal messages such as “I need you” or “I can’t do it without you”. “It’s ingenuine,” Wilder says, recognising that some in his congregation – which splits about 50/50 on party lines – have “fallen into the trap … Men’s health is something we overlook in America. Men want to be part of something – to feel like they belong.”

Increasingly, this election looks set to be defined by an entrenched gender divide. This is particularly evident, according to recent polls, among white men without a college degree, who favour Trump by a margin of 70%.

Naturally, what the pastor describes forms only a fragment of the reason white men are attracted to Trump. Some in the cable news commentariat chastise the Harris campaign for failing to connect with men, overlooking the reality that swathes of them continue to carry so much gender and racial bias that connection is impossible. Throughout this election I have heard many voters describe the vice-president of the United States with vicious misogyny, often in line with remarks Trump himself has made.

But America’s lurch into a loneliness epidemic is long established. It’s the subject of Robert Putnam’s seminal work Bowling Alone, which is set in towns not too far from here and observes the decline of the civic organisations, from bowling leagues to trade unions, that buttress a strong democracy and social fabric. Last year Joe Biden’s surgeon general categorised loneliness as a public health crisis. Vance acknowledges it in his book: loneliness, he writes, has led to “a peculiar crisis of masculinity in which some of the very traits that our culture inculcates make it difficult to succeed in a changing world.”

After my visit to Wilder, I drive towards Ohio’s border with Kentucky, along streets lined with large maple trees turning a magnificent orange as autumn sets in, for a canvassing event with a group of “Rising Republicans”. They tell me (to my relief) that they define youth as between the ages of 18 and 40, meaning they can proudly declare that Vance himself could still belong.

Supporters queue to get into Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance’s rally at Middletown high school. Photograph: Megan Jelinger/Reuters

The gender divide that defines this election is even more pronounced among younger voters, according to recent polls. Some 67% of young women support Harris, compared with 28% who support Trump. And 58% of young men favour Trump, against 37% for Harris.

Before we set out to walk the streets, I ask the group if they think the very definition of masculinity is on the ballot this year, too. Some nod in agreement. “The conservative’s definition of masculinity is hard-working blue-collar man, who works hard to support his family, his wife, his livelihood, his home and his community,” says one young man. “Those on the left, I don’t think they know what a man is.”

I ask the group’s president, Grant Bagshaw, whether he has concerns about the dozens of women who have accused Trump of sexual assault, and of the jury decision last year to hold the former president liable for sexual abuse. “It’s an uncomfortable subject. I don’t know. I don’t think any of us know, so I won’t make a judgment on whether they are telling the truth or not,” he says, adding: “Republicans and most Americans in general … they just don’t believe the media most of the time.”

He has a point on the last part, but neglects to mention that distrust in legacy media has accelerated in the Trump era of misinformation. The Republican campaign this year has done much to engage with alternative rightwing media targeted at young men in particular, as a range of subcultures such as cryptocurrency and online gambling bend towards conservative values. A testament, perhaps, to how Americans are no longer just bowling alone, but posting alone.

Cheerleaders at a high school football match between Middletown and Hamilton. Photograph: Tom Silverstone/The Guardian

I head back to Middletown for some Friday Night Lights – a high school football match where the city’s beloved “Middies” are facing off against their arch-rivals Hamilton Big Blue, from the neighbouring town (the Middies get thumped 42-7). Given where we are, I’m expecting to hear full-throated support for the Trump-Vance ticket and its turbocharged male identity politics.

But the reality is perhaps surprising. I sit in the bleachers – cheap open-air seats – with families, couples and young adults from across the region. Many do not even know that Vance grew up here, and their political persuasions are as mixed as their allegiances to the two teams. An older man stares down our camera and describes Donald Trump as “an idiot”. A younger man says “men are the main issue” behind the political failures in the country, but says he will not vote in November.

It’s a stark reminder that while the polls may be extremely close, nothing is a foregone conclusion in this election.