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The 2024 Presidential Election is in the books and Donald J. Trump will be the 47th President of the United States of America. Millions of voters around the country are celebrating the win, but News Talk should be celebrating, and strategizing, following the victory, and it has nothing to do with the policy that the former, and future President, will implement.
Since the News Talk format has been around, the belief around News Talk radio has been older, white men. And while the bulk of overall listening is still likely to come from this demographic, it would be foolish to not look at the shift in voter demographics and figure out how we can get these new Republican voters to consume our content.
Donald Trump is fresh off setting a GOP record for Latino vote. According to Axois, President Trump was backed by 46% of Latino voters Tuesday, surpassing Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush to win the biggest share of the national Latino vote by a Republican presidential contender in modern times, a new exit poll shows. And the skew, as expected, was heavier amongst men, with 55% of Latino men voting for Donald Trump, and 38% of Latina women.
Trump’s overall support among Latinos surpassed the 44% then-President George W. Bush, a Texan, received in 2004. President Ronald Reagan took 37% of the Latino vote in 1980 and 34% in 1984.
As Axois notes in its piece, “Andrew Smith, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, says South Texans have long been socially conservative and that Trump’s messaging on the economy and immigration landed well there.”
Those who are socially conservative are natural fits to be talk radio listeners. And that’s not because we are banging a political drum all day, but it’s the mindset and worldview of most of our hosts and that frames the topics we talk about, whether it’s pop culture, local news stories, or national politics.
Then, there’s the young male voter. According to CNN’s exit polling, Trump won men aged 18 to 29 by 49% to Harris’ 47%. By comparison, Biden won that group 52% to 41% in 2016. This shift has continued in recent political cycles. Young men are moving to the Republican Party, and that’s young white men, young latino men and young black men.
According to this Politico article, Trump won one-fifth of black men, doubling his number from four years ago. And of note in the article, “Several Black voters in the Detroit-area told POLITICO last month that surrogates and high-ranking party officials questioned their intelligence and came off as condescending.”
These are voters who can be potential listeners, and while those listeners may not be searching vehemently across the radio dial, because it’s not the world they may have grown up with, it will be our job to find them where they are, likely on social media, and try to drive them back to radio, when possible.
However, one of the advantages we should have here is that the overwhelming majority of these individuals are working class, meaning they’re not the white collar, work-from-home crowd. They’re in their cars. We are right there for them.
And we know they are interested in our content. Look at all the podcasts targeted at young men that Donald Trump and his surrogates joined this election season: Joe Rogan, Bussin’ With the Boys, YouTuber Logan Paul, comedian Theo Von, Lex Freidman, YouTubers the Nelk Boys, political commentator Ben Shapiro, and entrepreneur Patrick Bet-David.
These are young, diverse, in-demo listeners we should be targeting to draw them into our local programming content in our communities to grow our brands on all our platforms.
Now that we are having that conversation, how we go about doing it will be different in each market, but should be a priority to grow our pie, rather than just trying to double down on the pie that already exists.
Pete Mundo is a weekly columnist for Barrett Media, and the morning show host and program director for KCMO in Kansas City. Previously, he was a fill-in host nationally on FOX News Radio and CBS Sports Radio, while anchoring for WFAN, WCBS News Radio 880, and Bloomberg Radio. Pete was also the sports and news director for Omni Media Group at K-1O1/Z-92 in Woodward, Oklahoma. He’s also the owner of the Big 12-focused digital media outlet Heartland College Sports. To interact, find him on Twitter @PeteMundo.
