Social Media and a New Playground for the Young Voting Era: Vice-President Harris’s Outreach to Gen Z Students and Young Voters

Vice President Harris is bolstering her outreach to young people just in time for students to head back to school and as the campaign enjoys an increase in support among Gen Z and younger millennial voters.

There is a new playing field as she addressed a room of Gen Z organizers last week at a coffee shop wearing a few bracelets that said, “Kamala,” “political girlie” and “voting era.”

The attention and the energy on the internet has been great. “We’re really focused on how do we make sure that we maintain that energy and how do we then harness that energy?”

The Harris campaign has had staff dedicated to engaging young voters since the beginning of the year and launched a student-focused program in March. Their latest announcement brings the total staff focused on youth organizing around the country to 150 people, boosting it from roughly 70 to 80.

But making that support stick is a daunting task given how recently Harris launched her campaign and how historically unreliable young voters are in consistently turning out to vote – despite notable increases over the past decade.

Levenson can already point to promising signs for the campaign’s organizing push. A nationwide student organizing program that she launched last spring will begin to reappear this fall, as students return to campus.

She said that there has been a great influx of people coming into the campaign. “We’ve seen more sign-ups for our student program in the last few weeks than we had seen in the entirety of the time before. We’ve seen more people sign up. More people are applying for those jobs. But we need to keep up the energy, and we need that to continue.”

A surge of viral moments on the internet has helped Harris gain from a rise in polls. The campaign has seen an increase in engagement on social media, despite the fact that their overall followers are still behind the Trump campaign.

As Minnesota Governor and Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz took the stage at the DNC’s youth council meeting, the crowd of largely young people erupted in cheers and chants of “coach.”

The power the young voters could have in states where the margins may be extremely tight is what they were explained by Walz.

“It’s going to be won in the trenches,” he said. “It’s going to be won by your demographic for the most part. If we can convince you to vote, that’s how we’ll do it. It will be you who becomes the first female president of the United States.

That excitement is something Blake Robinson, a 21-year-old delegate from Georgia, said he could feel as he got ready to head over to the convention center hours before Harris accepted the presidential nomination.

The Democratic Party had something in mind, he said. We wanted youthfulness and energy. And now, I don’t know if you’ve been in the convention hall, but there is not a single dull moment in that hall.”

The DNC decision not to allow a Palestinian American to speak at the convention is being taken issue with by the organizers of the Uncommitted movement.

And while the war is not the top issue overall that young voters care about according to previous national polls, it remains a concern, particularly among some progressive, Arab American and Muslim voters – groups that typically side with Democrats.

“We know how much this issue impacts young people,” he explained. It’s important that a Palestinian American gets a place on this stage. We have to include everyone in our speaking lineup. We want people to know that we care about everyone and all sides of this issue.

The Harris Campaign for a Generation Z Voter: Bringing Out the Insights from the University of Pittsburgh into the Office of the National Electoral Commission

Harris and her supporters have lost more advertising space than Trump and groups supporting him.

Her campaign says their new digital organizing effort will include a national Snapchat takeover, where the campaign will push ads over the platform. They will run targeted ads on college websites along with other social media platforms.

“So, as you begin this school year, I’m calling on you to understand and know the stakes of this election, not only for our country but for you,” Harris said in a prerecorded video posted to a new campaign landing page for students, which has links to register to vote and ways to get involved on campus.

It’s something her campaign is aware of. They say they’re working to harness and sustain the increase in energy from young voters through the end of the election.

Trump is reaching out to young voters. He’s appeared with prominent social media influencers and done interviews on popular podcasts with comedians and content creators. The former president has continued to work closely with the organizing wing of the far-right group.

These steps follow an action-packed week at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which included a handful of youth-focused organizing events and programming, along with a handful of young speakers during the convention program each night.

The only way we can win in November is by organizing all over and turning the energy we are seeing into action, he said. “I am confident that we will see record youth turnout this November.”

“Young voters know the impact that this election will have on their futures, from the freedom to make our own health care decisions to addressing the climate crisis to being safe from gun violence to our ability to find a home and pay the rent,” Frost said in a statement from the Harris campaign.

The Harris campaign announcement coincides with a series of campus stops for campaign surrogates, which will continue over the next several weeks: The leader of the women’s health organization is on a visit to the University of Pittsburgh.

Source: Harris needs Gen Z. Here’s her plan to win them

Biden’s 2020 Campaign: Campaigning for Minority Voter Participation in the House of Representatives Across the House and Senate Majorities

In 2020, Biden won among voters under 30 by a whopping 24-point margin, with some of the highest turnout among young voters of color in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan. He lost the favor of many young voters over the past year because of his policies and his age, and they disagreed with many of his choices.

The initiatives will be targeting young voters on 150 campuses in 11 states.