It's a perfect late October Autumn day that greets Donald Trump in Greenville, North Carolina. The leaves are on the turn, resplendent reds punching through the sea of green.
Red punctuates the waiting crowd too, with the identifiable MAGA cap proudly displayed by many of those lining up and particularly popular among young men.
One of them is 23-year-old Jack Lawrence, who's excited to see Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the flesh, a man he describes as "strong, charismatic, empathetic."
He's aligned with Trump on the issues that matter to him, citing immigration and the economy. But for Jack, Trump's appeal goes beyond his policies.
He says masculinity has been put on the "backburner" by Democrats.
"[Trump promises] to bring back the masculine face that that you saw back in the 60s and 70s with American men," he says.
"Just strong men providing for their family and just being able to be men and not be pressured down, like the left is really trying to push right now."
Jack says he grew up in a small town, about an hour's drive from Greenville, with "Christian values". He's now studying construction management at East Carolina University which he says is "definitely a more conservative-leaning school than liberal".
He also thinks the polls underestimate Trump's support. "There's a lot more people that are scared to voice their opinion than you really think," he says, because they'd previously been "getting hated on just because of their political affiliation".
Battle of the sexes
Trump's increasing appeal to young men may end up becoming one of the defining subplots of this campaign.
Throughout his political career, he has marketed himself as a fighter and a tough guy.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, he has attended wrestling and mixed martial arts (MMA) fights.
At the Republican National Convention, where Trump officially accepted his party's nomination, he had former wrestling star Hulk Hogan as one of the speakers.
When talking to the women of America, he promised to be their "protector".
And one of his surrogates, former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, recently described Trump as "daddy", painting a vivid image of him returning to the White House to spank a wayward daughter.
"When Dad gets home, you know what he says?" Carlson asked the crowd at an event by Turning Point USA, an organisation pushing conservative politics on school and college campuses.
"'You've been a bad girl, you've been a bad little girl, and you're getting a vigorous spanking right now.'"
In what might be the closest election in modern US history, Trump is hoping he can get a notoriously unreliable voting bloc – young men – off the couch and into the polling booths to put him back into the White House.
In the muddy data, a noticeable shift
To appeal to non-traditional voters, Trump's campaign knew their candidate had to meet them where they were.
Rather than focusing only on interviews with mainstream broadcasting outlets, Trump has instead looked to podcasters, YouTubers and influencers who have millions of young, male followers.
He invited online pranksters the Nelk Boys onto his plane and appeared on comedian Theo Von's YouTube channel for a long sit-down interview, which covered everything from cocaine to the power of lobby groups.
Then, he nabbed perhaps the most sought-after slot in American media in 2024: A three-hour conversation with the world's biggest podcaster, Joe Rogan.
It's hard to know exactly which parts of the campaign are striking a chord, but it appears that an increasing number of young men are buying what Trump is selling.
Traditionally, American men under 30 have strongly skewed towards Democrats in national elections.
But recent polling from Harvard Kennedy School suggests that since 2020, "the share of young men identifying as registered Democrats has dropped by 7 percentage points, while those identifying as Republicans have increased by 7 points — a net shift of 14 points in just four years".
Sunshine Hillygus, a professor of political science at North Carolina's Duke University, points out it's notoriously difficult to gather robust data on a group who is "really hard to get to cooperate".
But she says there's mounting evidence of a noticeable shift.
"There has been a large spike in young women calling themselves liberal," she says.
"That's kind of a summary across all the issues, and when we deep-dive on individual issues, that's where you see greater concern about climate, reproductive rights for young women compared to young men."
Concerns about inflation and the economy, meanwhile, tend to be "a higher rated issue of concern for young men", Professor Hillygus says.
She expects this shift will result in a different voting pattern on election day.
"A much larger percentage of young women are predicted to vote for Harris than young men," she says.
Harris goes after women where they are
While Trump has been popping up across the bro media sphere, Kamala Harris has also been narrowcasting her message, particularly to young women.
She did an interview on the mega-popular Call Her Daddy, which is Spotify's second-biggest podcast, only behind The Joe Rogan Experience.
The 40-minute conversation weaved through Harris's backstory, as well as issues like housing affordability. But the major focus was on abortion access.
Host Alex Cooper said she was torn about inviting a politician onto her show, which enjoys about five million downloads a week.
"I had been going back and forth with this decision for a while to get involved or to not get involved, but at the end of the day, I couldn't see a world in which one of the main conversations in this election is women and I'm not a part of it."
Harris's deliberate outreach to young women appears to be paying off.
A poll by NBC found that American women under 30 said they'll vote for Harris over Trump by a 33-point margin.
Eighteen-year-old Eva Eapen says she's noticed a major difference among her age group.
Eva, a student at North Carolina University at Chapel Hill, calls herself an independent voter. But she is volunteering with the Democratic campaign for state governor and will be voting for Harris for president.
"I think young men are gravitating towards Trump at an astounding degree," she says.
"And I think that young women are rallying for Kamala Harris.
"I have seen it in my own friends. I've spoken to friends who have seen it in their male friends or male siblings or male partners."
Eva says there are issues where she doesn't agree with the Democrats, like border policy (she says "the southern border is a little bit of a mess"). But she says the vice-president's promise to restore a nationwide right to abortion is critical to her.
"Reproductive rights is huge, as I think it is for women across the country," she said.
"[It is] pivotal for so many women, conservative women included.
"I think they're rallying to say that we feel like we're losing our autonomy. We feel like our agency is being threatened and challenged, and that is something to vote for. That is something to fight for."
She called Harris's appearance on Call Her Daddy a "brilliant move" because "the audience for that podcast is not politically engaged women".
Conversely, she thinks the Democrats have done a terrible job of engaging with young men who have "been neglected by the left and by the Democratic Party for a very long time".
Will young people turn up?
With just a week to go before election day, both the national and key swing state polls are effectively tied.
There's little confidence amongst pollsters about which way this election will go, but most expect the gender gap in 2024 will be more pronounced than in previous campaigns.
And in an election that could come down to a few thousand votes, getting young people to the polls could be the difference between victory and defeat.
But there could be a problem: Young Americans under 30 are not traditionally reliable voters.
Voting isn't mandatory in the United States, and a major challenge for candidates is motivating people to show up and cast their ballots.
The presidential election in 2020 saw unusually high turnout by young people, but it was still just over 50 per cent.
Professor Hillygus says the younger voting cohort could prove crucial
"When you're dealing with an evenly divided bipartisanship state, the turnout among young people can make the difference."
— with in Washington DC
