The unconventional Harris-Walz affinity group for white male supporters, “White Dudes for Harris,” is out with a new ad urging its target demographic to support the Democratic campaign because they’re “actually talking to guys like us.”
The spot, which is part of a more than $10 million ad buy that will run in several key swing states, begins with a tough-guy narrator acknowledging that “white dudes” are “pretty sick of hearing how much we suck every time you go online.”
But the 60-second ad then claims that “some white dudes” are in fact the problem, pointing to “Trump and all his MAGA buddies.”
“But if you’re not on the MAGA train where do you go? Isn’t it just swapping out one crappy option for another?” the narrator asks. “Then it hit me: this isn’t about picking teams. It’s about who’s got a plan that’s going to make life better for me and my family.”
“Before you jump down my throat, they’re actually talking to guys like us,” the narrator says, defending his decision to support Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota governor Tim Walz. “No lectures. No BS. Just real solutions that protect our freedoms and help us take care of the people who matter.”
Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, delivered a lecture on “toxic masculinity” just last year during an appearance on MSNBC.
“There’s too much of toxicity — masculine toxicity out there, and we’ve kind of confused what it means to be a man, what it means to be masculine,” Emhoff said. “You’ve got this trope out there where you have to be tough, and angry, and lash out to be strong.
The ad urges men to make their own decision about who to vote for and to push back against in-group social pressure.
“End of the day you’re your own man,” the ad concludes. “It’s your call. But if anyone gives you crap about it, tell ’em it’s none of their damn business.”
The ad is airing in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin on YouTube, streaming and social-media platforms, Politico reports.
The “white dudes” group first rose to infamy in July, when it held a Zoom call fundraiser that reportedly brought in more than $3.5 million to support Harris’s campaign. The call drew more than 180,000 participants, including Mark Hamill, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and *NSYNC singer Lance Bass, according to NBC News.
A number of “white dude” politicos joined the call as well, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Illinois governor JB Pritzker, and Representative Adam Schiff of California.
“I qualify, man! I’m white, I’m a dude, and I’m for Harris,” actor Jeff Bridges said on the call. “Kamala is just so certainly our girl, you know. I can see her being president. I’m so excited. A woman president, man. How exciting!”
Organizer Ross Morales Rocketto joked during the call that the hats the group had for sale were trucker hats and “not the pointy ones,” adding, for anyone who didn’t get his Ku Klux Klan reference, that, “throughout American history, when white men organized, it was often with pointy hats on.”
The “White Dudes for Harris” group is just one of several online affinity groups supporting Harris-Walz, with others appealing directly toward black and white women.
The Biden-Harris administration has prioritized racial equity — the push to ensure equality of outcome by advantaging racial minorities over their white peers — across dozens of federal agencies and issue areas. The Harris campaign website’s policy page includes a blurb touting her record of boosting affirmative action in government contracting, which led to a “tripling the Small Business Administration’s lending to Black-owned businesses, and more than doubling small-dollar lending to Latino and women-owned businesses.”