Kamala Harris energises Gen Z voters who planned to sit out 2024 election
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More than half of swing-state voters age 18 to 34 said they are more likely to take part in the November election now that Mr Biden has left the race.
PHOTO: AFP
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WASHINGTON – Mr Cameron Elgart, a 23-year-old musician who lives in Idaho, was dismayed at the prospect of another presidential race pitting Mr Joe Biden against Donald Trump. He planned to sit out November’s election.
After supporting Mr Biden in 2020, Mr Elgart said the president had lost his vote over his handling of the war in Gaza.
Now that Vice-President Kamala Harris is running in Mr Biden’s place, he’s changed his mind about staying on the sidelines.
“There’s so much more that I like about Kamala,” said Mr Elgart, noting the Democratic candidate’s background as a prosecutor and her youth, at age 59, compared with Mr Biden, who is 81.
“She’s just a more suited candidate for young people.”
More than half of swing-state voters age 18 to 34 said they are more likely to take part in the November election now that Mr Biden has left the race
Some 38 per cent said his exit made them much more likely to cast a ballot, while 16 per cent said it made them somewhat more likely to vote.
Only 3 per cent of respondents in that age group said that Mr Biden’s move made them much less likely to participate.
The under-30 demographic has broken for Democrats for decades and Generation Z – loosely defined as those born between the late 1990s and early 2010s –helped propel the party to victory in 2020 and in the 2022 midterms.
Yet Democratic leaders were worried Mr Biden’s unpopularity would diminish youth turnout and tip the race to Trump, the Republican nominee for the third consecutive presidential election.
Since announcing her candidacy, Ms Harris has shown strength in areas where Mr Biden looked weak, making up ground in several polls and drawing a torrent of campaign funds
Online, the campaign’s social-media accounts have rapidly accumulated followers and viral memes have refreshed Ms Harris’ image with young voters who had known her as Mr Biden’s understudy.
The Ms Harris campaign’s TikTok account – previously Mr Biden’s – has seen its follower count jump from 440,000 to more than 2.7 million since Mr Biden dropped out.
Ms Harris also launched her own personal account
“She is all over TikTok,” said Ms Zoe Sather, a 19-year-old who lives in Arizona and plans to vote for Ms Harris. “That’s one resource that all young people use.”
The buzz around Ms Harris is giving new hope to Democratic youth leaders who were worried their chances of winning would be ruined by voters like Mr Elgart staying home.
The Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate change group that had called for Mr Biden to drop out, said it has seen an influx of volunteers interested in helping with outreach and expects to double its voter contacts.
NextGen America, a youth advocacy group pushing a large-scale voter registration effort, has seen an increase in responses to its text message and email campaigns.
“The energy has completely shifted,” said Mr Antonio Arellano, 33, vice-president of communications at NextGen America. “We haven’t seen this energy since President Barack Obama’s 2008 candidacy.”
Notably, the change is reinvigorating groups trying to increase youth voter turnout in swing states.
Mr Benjamin Orjada, 30, who leads the Michigan chapter of Young Democrats of America, said that volunteers he hadn’t heard from since Mr Biden’s disastrous debate performance in June
Mr Adam Lacasse, 23, president of the Michigan College Democrats, said low enthusiasm had made efforts to engage voters so difficult that there were discussions about pivoting to focus on down-ballot races.
“All that got flipped right on its head the moment that Biden dropped out and endorsed Kamala,” Mr Lacasse said.
Resonant identity
Ms Harris – the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants – has a heritage that resonates with Gen Z, the country’s most racially and ethnically diverse generation of voting age.
And though she served as both California’s Attorney-General and as a US senator before becoming vice-president, younger voters see her as a break from Washington’s old guard.
If elected, she would be the first woman to serve as US president.
“In politics, people want to see someone that represents themselves, represents the future,” said Ms Rotimi Adeoye, 27, communications director of the Pennsylvania Young Democrats.
Some young voters are looking past Ms Harris’ connection to Mr Biden’s policies, particularly his support for Israel’s military campaign against Hamas, a US-designated terrorist group, after its Oct 7 attack.
Ms Harris has struck a more sympathetic tone on the suffering of Palestinians and been more critical of Israel’s military conduct than Mr Biden was in the earlier stages of the conflict.
“Kamala does lie in this unique space,” says Ms Annie Wu Henry, a 28-year-old digital political strategist who has worked for mostly progressive candidates.
“While she is a part of the Biden-Harris administration and can take credit and be a part of some of the policy wins,” she explained, “she also has that distance from perhaps some of the things that people are maybe not so thrilled about.”
In the meantime, the Harris campaign has been working hard to revamp her image.
It has used viral clips of Ms Harris speeches, many first circulated by Republican opposition accounts, as fodder for inside jokes on social media.
One snippet where Ms Harris refers to a phrase her mom used – “‘You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’”– has inspired supporters to post coconut and palm tree emojis.
Her team also pounced on a coded endorsement from British singer Charli XCX.
“Young voters who may be unaware of the vice-president’s record or platform are tapping in and getting to know her,” said Mr Arellano of NextGen America.
Awaiting details
Some youth leaders said they are awaiting the full breadth of Ms Harris’ policy proposals and her vice-presidential pick.
Gen-Z for Change, previously known as TikTok for Biden, withheld an endorsement from the man they were initially established to help elect.
But within hours of Ms Harris’ entrance to the race, the non-profit backed her in a statement.
The endorsement was a broader affirmation of Mr Biden’s decision to step aside rather than a full-throated approval of Ms Harris, according to deputy executive director Victoria Hammett, who said the campaign has reached out to the organisation.
“Generation Z really thinks critically about the issues, and that platform is going to be most important,” Ms Hammett, 25, said. “In 2020, Vice-President Harris did have a strong progressive platform that we believe appeals to a lot of voters in our generation.”
March for Our Lives, a gun-reform advocacy movement formed in the aftermath of school shootings, made its first-ever political endorsement for Ms Harris, who leads the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
But Mr David Hogg, a 24-year-old co-founder of the group, warned that a running mate with centre-right views could quell some of the excitement among young people.
“It’s a number of them who concern me,” said Mr Hogg, who personally endorsed Minnesota Governor Tim Walz but declined to say who he opposes for the job.
“I fear that we may lose some of the youth vote if there’s a governor to the right of Kamala that is picked, for example, and we can’t let that happen.”
Ms Harris is likely to reveal her vice-presidential selection in the coming days. BLOOMBERG
