Democrats' young male winners become a social media fixation after big midterm night

Scroll through social media in the days after the midterms and a particular genre of post is hard to miss: users openly swooning over the young men Democrats just sent to office. Fitness coach Jesse Barton summed up the mood while reacting to the results, naming Rob Sand, Jon Ossoff and Abdul El Sayed. "I am looking, I am not the only one, and I'm very happy about what I see," he said.

The content ranges from debates over which candidate is most attractive to AI generated images and endless montages of the politicians set to sultry pop songs. One of the most viral items was a parody Tiger Beat magazine cover starring Democratic men, which Manoushka Guerrier, a Los Angeles based chef and content creator, expanded into a full Tiger Beat style personality quiz built around boy band archetypes. Her matches include "the Babyface" for Texas Senator-elect James Talarico and "the Heartthrob" for Colorado Representative-elect Manny Rutinel.

Guerrier, who follows politics closely, insists the looks are only a bonus. "They're young and they're ballsy and they're smart, and they're not just smart; they're brilliant," she said.

The flood of attention marks a sharp turn from the first Trump midterm in 2018, when the Women's March, the Me Too movement and a long list of assault and misconduct allegations against President Trump helped produce a record wave of Democratic women. The thirsty posting, observers say, is not just a joke; it reflects how Democrats have processed the Trump era.

Christina Wolbrecht, a political science professor at Notre Dame University, points to two forces. "I think it's a function of our kind of society-wide debate about masculinity," she said. "And I also think it's about age." On age, a NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll taken just before the election found a majority of likely voters preferred candidates with new ideas over those with experience. On masculinity, Wolbrecht said the trend answers MAGA's elevation of one narrow model of manhood: "For 10-plus years, Donald Trump has presented one very distinct version of masculinity. It's very much power over [others]. It's very much power through wealth and status."

Democratic candidates played into the theme this cycle. Rutinel and Michigan Senator-elect El Sayed posted weightlifting videos, and El Sayed even spoofed Love Island. Admirers were posting videos well before Election Day, and media coverage of the party's "rugged" and "authentic" contenders amplified the narrative.

Democratic strategist Monica Venske said the party faced a branding problem with men after Kamala Harris lost the presidency in 2024. "The feeling within the straight male demographic, if you will, [was] that it just wasn't cool to be a Democrat," she said. "It's not manly to be a Democrat. That's a girly thing to be, is a Democrat." She started the Instagram account Boyfriends We Deserve to spotlight attractive Democrats, mostly men but some women. She is deliberate about the difference: calling incoming Montana congressman Sam Forstag hot "will most likely never, ever hurt him," while similar comments about Keisha Lance Bottoms "could hurt her every time," so she calls women "baddies" or praises their hair instead. For Venske, the project shows the party is a big tent: "If a guy who is jumping out of planes to put out fires and fixing up trucks can be a Democrat, you can be a Democrat, I promise," she said, describing Forstag, a former smokejumper whose announcement video showed him repairing a truck.

Democratic women also won major races this year, including several historic firsts. Georgia's Keisha Lance Bottoms will be the first Black woman governor, New Mexico's Deb Haaland the first Native American woman governor, and Minnesota's Peggy Flanagan the nation's first Native American woman senator. Even so, the masculinity of male candidates drew outsized attention, which Wolbrecht ties to the party's ongoing electability debate. "I hear it from all sorts of people with all sorts of engagement that 2016 and 2024 proved that it took old-guy, aviator sunglasses Joe Biden to defeat Trump," she said, adding that she believes that reading is a mistake but that "the meaning we put on elections has consequences and it really shapes what parties do strategically going forward."

Democrats have struggled with male voters in recent cycles; Harris won 43 percent of men in 2024, while the party won 50 percent of the men's vote this year. Guerrier rejects the idea that the fixation on looks is about electability, arguing the election was about rewriting the party's story. "It was just like these guys came out of nowhere, and it was just so refreshing that, wow, we can get out of this darkness and into something that is hopeful," she said.