In Pennsylvania, John Fetterman rose to prominence as the biggest, beefiest lieutenant governor the land had ever seen. His size; his plainspoken affect; his hoodies and tattoos; and the working-class appeal of his policies on marijuana, guns, and unions—they all screamed masculinity in a way that was rare for a popular Democrat. All this made quite a lot of Democrats swoon even before he won the Senate primary. Many had already started discussing him as a potential future presidential contender.
Over the summer, these attributes and an arsenal of viral memes dunking on his opponent, Republican Mehmet “Dr.” Oz, positioned Fetterman as the dominant figure in the race and Oz as its submissive. Fetterman set the race’s terms, successfully rendering Oz as a fancy-pants celebrity carpetbagger who also happened to be a servant-boy for Donald Trump, and the polls bore that out through August. This dynamic was never more clear than when Fetterman hammered Oz—a former doctor with no political experience who made a fortune selling snake-oil cures on TV—for calling a vegetable platter “crudité.” (This was from a video Oz made to illustrate inflation’s effects at the grocery store.) There was a clear subtext: What kind of girly man uses a word that sounds so French?
The race tightened after Oz launched an uglier attack: In fact, it was Fetterman who was the girly man—the weakling in the race—because he had a stroke in May. To be clear: These attacks were not equivalent. Oz was bullying a stroke victim and lying about Fetterman’s cognitive abilities, which experts say remain sharp, despite the difficulties he’s displayed campaigning. Those experts also expect him to make a full recovery and say that medically, he can do the job of senator. But Oz—who launched his campaign with an ad in which he wore a flannel shirt in a field, and wielded and fired a shotgun as he angrily said anyone doubting his love of the Second Amendment was “dead wrong”—focused his campaign on the idea that if Fetterman wasn’t even “strong” enough to hear people and speak, he’s hardly strong enough to serve Pennsylvania. The subtext again was clear: He’s too weak to do this job. For this reason, among others, the race is now a dead heat.
In Georgia, meanwhile, the candidates could not be further apart in ideology, biography, or temperament, but the race is pitting two paradigms of masculinity against each other: the pastor and the star athlete. Sen. Raphael Warnock, who before serving in Congress served God at the pulpit once held by Martin Luther King Jr., has credibly cultivated an image as the good pastor—or in other words, of being a Good Man. This image has proved so valuable to Warnock that he has pulled his punches against his Republican opponent, the megastar University of Georgia and NFL running back Herschel Walker, even as the vociferously anti-abortion Walker has had stories of secret children and coerced abortions come to light. Walker, for his part, is leaning into quite a different sort of manhood by pretending that none of the secret children or abortions are real. Instead, he has spent the campaign asserting unapologetically that these women are all lying and trying to take him down. Walker’s resilience in the polls is testing not just Warnock’s strategy of restraint, but also what many of us learned in high school: If a guy is good enough at sports, he can remain beloved no matter what else he does.
Ohio Democratic candidate Tim Ryan, a white Rust Belt pro-union guy, might have peaked in popularity this campaign cycle when he called his GOP rival, erstwhile Trump critic J.D. Vance, an “ass-kisser” for sucking up to the ex-president despite previously referring to him as “America’s Hitler.” Vance in response argued that it was Ryan who was the real ass-kisser, if you looked at how often he voted with Nancy Pelosi in the House. Ohio has become solidly red in the past decade, and many believe that Ryan’s more traditional appeal, and his attacks on Vance’s authenticity and mettle, are a big reason why it’s competitive at all. Despite being miles apart on what their terms in the Senate would mean for Ohio and America, the race is another toss-up.
Even when the candidates are women, the question of who’s more macho can have an impact. There’s a similar contrast as the Vance-Ryan one being drawn in the Arizona governor’s race, where Democrat Katie Hobbs has been attacked by her rival Republican Kari Lake as “too timid” to debate her. Indeed, Hobbs has refused to do so. Prominent local observers have agreed that Hobbs is scared because Lake, a longtime local TV anchor who is very comfortable on camera and on the attack, would eat Hobbs alive. In a crucial swing state that Biden won, Lake is an extreme election denier, while Hobbs is a moderate and seemingly sane if boring and ineloquent person serving as Arizona’s secretary of state. But it’s Lake who’s slightly favored to win—in no small part because she seems to be the dominant, attacking personality in the race, while Hobbs constantly plays defense. Or look to Alaska’s House race, where former governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has struggled against her opponent Mary Peltola in part due to Palin’s reputation as a fame-hunting wannabe celebrity, while Peltola has earned credibility and popularity for being passionately “pro-fish,” and posting images of herself hauling salmon into a boat in a pair of waterproof fishing pants on her campaign website. In Alaska, a real man fishes; he doesn’t helicopter down to the lower-48 to appear in a furry bear costume on The Masked Singer.
Granted, this is all a bit reductive. Voters do care about issues, and vote about things far beyond machismo, including along some lines that are anti-machismo when they align with their values (see: bodily autonomy). But with the survival of democracy and our environment; and the fundamental rights of women, transgender people, and people of color on the ballot, just for starters, it’s depressing that so many of these races look like they might boil down to who looks tough and who looks weak—which candidates look like a Real Man, and which look like a Little Bitch. Then again, I suppose it’s called “toxic” masculinity for a reason: Once these ideas get inside you, they can be awfully difficult to extract.
