There has been a great deal of handwringing about the rightward shift of young male voters in the U.S. Among the anxious are New York Congressional candidate Jack Schlossberg, who recently credited President Donald Trump with outmaneuvering Democrats in successfully connecting with the bros in the manosphere.
Lots of ink has been spilled and money spent on these prospective voters. Are they really the vital missing link? Not necessarily. A recent report from centrist think tank Third Way predicts many of the “swingy, moderate, low-propensity young men” who supported Trump will sit out the midterms this year.
So who should forward-thinking political strategists and hopefuls turn their attention to? The oft-forgotten, invisible aging woman — or, what we like to call the meno-sphere.
Why women
When it comes to investing in the political engagement of midlife and older women — well, crickets. Both parties underestimate this demographic at their own peril. Conservative pundits recently mocked the rising activism of “organized gangs of wine moms,” suggesting that the number of progressive activist women going to the polls for Democrats would be swamped by the trad moms voting for Trump. Democrats themselves have shown vanishingly little public interest in analyzing how winning older women could translate to electoral clout.
Back in 2024, after then-vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance had a viral moment for appearing to agree with a derogatory remark about the priorities of “postmenopausal females,” AARP noted that nobody was really focusing on the 63 million women voters over the age of 50. Then, many Gen X and Boomer women went on to vote for Donald Trump. (Not all, though: Black women supported Kamala Harris at a rate greater than any other group of women voters, with Jewish women right behind them.)
Fast forward to November 2025, midlife and older women were key to Democratic gubernatorial wins in New Jersey and Virginia, as well as mayoral and judicial races across the country. Current reporting out of Maine shows this cohort is certain to play a pivotal role in one of the most critical U.S. Senate races, starting with the upcoming primary for the Democratic challenger to Sen. Susan Collins.
What to consider
Among the issues motivating them is the economy. Dubbed a generation of “super consumers” by Forbes, women over 50 account for 27 percent of all domestic consumer spending (3 percent more than men of the same age) and make nearly all household purchasing decisions according to AARP, often managing expenses both for grown children and aging parents. That alone suggests their votes are in play and Democrats have a compelling argument to make on traditional kitchen table issues in this time of out-of-control spending on things like a war that may be severely out of alignment with their priorities.
Now, a new AARP survey of American voters, focusing on women ages 50-64, shows that this cohort is deeply concerned about their financial future. “The reality is that women 50-plus are one of the largest voting groups, and also one of the most up-for-grabs,” Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster who conducted the survey, told USA Today. “Both sides of the aisle have the potential to win [them] over with the right focus and the right message.”
Ensuring the safety of their own communities has been another onramp for political activism for older women. More and more, we are seeing what New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman calls “neighboring” play a transformational role in democratic engagement and awakening. On streets disrupted by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, neighboring communities amount to the stuff PTA volunteers and local-minded women have long done and are great at — organizing meal trains, overseeing carpools, even donating breast milk. An article about grassroots activism among Baltimore seniors highlights local hubs, such as the Raging Grannies, that defend democracy.
That activism spills over into a hands-on understanding of the importance of voting — and the fight for the ballot itself. “We’re hearing from our members in every state in the nation that they are incredibly insulted by and upset about the SAVE Act,” says Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, president of Moms Rising, a grassroots organization that focuses on policies benefiting women and families. Among the SAVE Act’s implications, it would uniquely affect those who changed their name at marriage, including the ability to register and vote without jumping through hoops. But no one should have to jump through hoops to exercise a fundamental right, and women understand this; they know a poll tax when they see one. Moms Rising has mobilized nearly 50,000 calls to U.S. senators, marking “record high action rates,” according to Rowe-Finkbeiner.
And the daily fallout of the accumulation of Epstein files is perhaps the chef’s kiss. Older women now see that even though they have fought against the patriarchy for decades, it's still prevalent. If anything, our generation may have underestimated how vast the networks peddling misogyny are — from doctors to law firm leaders to university heads. Feminist writer Liz Plank wrote an essay entitled, "We are living through the patriarchy’s last tantrum." In it, she writes: "There's a particular whiplash in being vindicated and horrified at the same time. You knew the system was rotten, but you didn't know how much rot it could contain without collapsing."
Older women surely understand how important engagement in electoral politics is, but still, the political powers that be haven’t come calling in a sustained way.
There are many good reasons to prioritize the electoral and mobilization potential of the meno-sphere. Back in 1992, the Times published a piece called “Mighty Menopause,” which posited that the then-rise of Baby Boomer women in politics was a direct result of hormonal shifts and that the “biological changes wrought by menopause” ultimately bolster women’s “interest in power and increase their ability to use it."
If ever there were a moment to prove that to be true, it's now — as our daughters’ and granddaughters’ rights are rolled back, as communities are terrorized, as the power elite’s willful alignment with the rot becomes clearer by the day.
We are neither political pollsters nor party operatives. But this much we know: These are voters who may well be the ones best suited — in tenacity, in temperament — to help save democracy.
Joyce Vance served as the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017. Subscribe to her Substack, Civil Discourse.
Jennifer Weiss-Wolf is co-author of A Citizen's Guide to Menopause Advocacy and serves as executive director of the Birnbaum Women's Leadership Center at NYU Law.
