But he is part of a global trend that has seen more young male voters shifting right.

The historic shift of young male voters to the right

At the 2024 US election, young men turned out in force for Republican Donald Trump. Young male voters swung more to the right than they have in two decades, breaking the trend of young people preferring left-leaning candidates.

Young male voters swung more right than they have in two decades in the last US Presidential election in 2024. Source: Getty / Alex Wong

Young women, however, favoured his Democrat opponent Kamala Harris, showing political polarisation between the genders. This gender divide is happening in other countries, too.

In South Korea, voting preferences between genders in the 2022 election were similar in most age groups, except 18 to 29-year-olds, where the genders split. While 59 per cent of young males voted for the conservative candidate, who eventually won (their support second only to that of voters aged 60 and older), young women under 30 were the least supportive of the conservative leader.

Hugo Lennon, a 21-year-old Australian political commentator, has attracted 73,000 followers on his TikTok in just over a year by making political content, primarily focusing on migration.

Hugo Lennon, who goes by ‘AUSPILL’ online, says the Australian political landscape doesn’t leave room for discussion about migration. Source: Supplied

Better known as AUSPILL, he argues against migration in his videos, saying particular ethnic groups are not “assimilating to the broader culture of Australia” when they live in suburbs with a large immigrant population, and migration isn’t living up to the economic benefits that were promised by previous governments.

Hugo is reluctant to put a label on his politics, but says if he had to pick, he is right-leaning and finds the approach of the Liberal Party on immigration too mild. He says it’s one of the reasons he was able to capture an audience — because he’s having the conversations others shy away from.

“I speak to new young people every day who are reaching out. But we don’t have the political vehicle to express these changes yet,” Knight said to The Feed in an email.

While the platforms of Knight and AUSPILL may be growing, young Australian male voters might not follow this global trend.

Australia mirrors the gender gap — but with a twist

Some data suggests there is a gender split in Australia too, but not like we’ve seen overseas.

“It makes sense why men comparatively are less enthused about it or were less enthused about it because with the progression in society, men kind of realised that from becoming a net beneficiary of society, they ended up being net contributors … according to their perception,” she said.

“Everyone who’s eligible is expected to come and turn out to vote, which means that all those sorts of extreme sentiments get ironed out.”

What pushed the global success, and could it happen here?

“This effect was particularly strong for Donald Trump. So he went on podcasts like the famous or infamous Joe Rogan Experience, which has an overwhelmingly male audience [with] 80 per cent male listeners,” he said.

Chowdhury agrees and thinks that while Australia is not tracking this way in this election, it’s not to say it will always be this way.

“But it also does give a bit of hope where it’s like, ‘okay, maybe we put a recipe here for how we can do it [in Australia].'”