United States vice-president Kamala Harris’s newly launched presidential campaign is targeting young voters, following President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race and endorse her as the Democratic nominee.
The 59-year-old held her first campaign rally since becoming the likely Democratic candidate in Milwaukee on Tuesday.
Harris has raised more than US$100 million ($150 million) since Sunday afternoon and and political groups.
Her campaign is homing in on young voters by launching social media content aimed at gen Z and emphasising the support she has from celebrities.
Why Harris needs the support of young voters
While Biden overwhelmingly won the youth vote in 2020, recent polls showed a steep decrease in young voters’ support for the president — mainly due to concerns about his age and support for .
Ava Kalinauskas, a research associate from the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre, said young people in particular did not want to see a race between Biden and former president Donald Trump.
“In the dying days of Biden’s campaign, we saw that young voters were one of the several key Democratic constituencies that he was struggling to hold onto,” Kalinauskas said.
“When Biden was still in the race, those aged 18 to 29 were the most likely to think that he was too old to be an effective president — more of any other age group.”
Twenty-eight per cent of 18-to-29-year-olds viewed Biden favourably, while 36 per cent of voters in the same age bracket viewed Trump favourably, according to a national poll from NPR, PBS NewsHour and Marist College in April.
Kalinauskas says Harris’s age as well as her campaigning on US college campuses around issues such as gun safety and climate action may be enough to energise the young Democratic voter base.
“I think that the energy she brings as a younger face and a more vigorous opponent of Trump is something that could be really appealing to young voters,” she said.
Pop culture support for Harris
Numerous pop stars have expressed support for Harris, including Janelle Monae, Katy Perry, John Legend and British musician Charlie XCX.
Shortly after Biden’s endorsement of Harris, Charlie XCX posted to social media platform X appearing to support the vice-president, saying “Kama IS brat”.
Brat is the name of a 2024 Charli XCX album and its minimal album cover with a lime green background has inspired many memes.
Charli XCX describes a “brat” as “that girl who is a little messy, likes to party, and maybe says some dumb things sometimes”.
Following Biden’s exit, on X with a lime green logo inspired by the album with the word “Brat” replaced by “kamala hq”.
Beyoncé — who is known for strictly guarding the rights to her music — has also reportedly allowed Harris to use her track Freedom on the campaign trail, a defiant song that features rapper Kendrick Lamar.
Rapper Cardi B posted a series of videos to her Instagram on Sunday reminding her audience that Harris has long had her support.
“Been told y’all Kamala should’ve been the 2024 candidate. Y’all be trying to play the Bronx education, baby this is what I do!!!” Been my passion … don’t let my accent fool y’all,” the caption read.
Actors George Clooney, Viola Davis, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Robert De Niro
Harris’s campaign launch on social media
Kamala HQ’s TikTok page has also been producing content aimed at capturing the attention of young voters.
One video, which contrasts photos of Harris with Trump and features Chappell Roan’s hit song Femininomenon, has gained over 24.6 million views and was also shared widely on other platforms.
Negative memes about Harris have also been spreading more widely online, including compilations of her laughing boisterously after Trump referred to her as “Laffin’ Kamala”.
Kalinauskas says that, while there is certainly a lot of online hype surrounding Harris’s campaign at the moment “it’s impossible to say if social media will be a defining factor in the race.”
“But I think it does speak to the sort of momentum she’s been able to build … I think rather than being a specific game changer for her, it really just speaks to how she’s been able to inject this new kind of life into the Democratic ticket,” she said.
Besides young people, Kalinauskas said Kamala’s campaign will also try to target registered independent voters and undecided voters.
“She has this short window of time among those voters to prove that she can lean into those independent demographics and potentially in swing states. So, that’s what I’d sort of be watching in the coming days — because these voters know who Trump is, but they might not necessarily know who Harris is yet,” she said.
