Ai bot
“ Brats for Harris.” “ We need a Kamalanomenon. ” “ Gen Z feels the Kamalove.”
In the days since President Joe Biden exited the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, Gen Z voters have taken to social media to share coconut tree and “brat summer” memes, marking a significant shift in tone for a generation that has often felt overlooked by the Democratic Party.
Youth-led progressive organizations have warned for months that Biden had a problem with young voters, urging the president to work more closely with them on key issues. With Biden out of the race, many young leaders are now hopeful that Harris can revive support among Gen Z and harness a new wave of enthusiasm.
Since last Sunday, statements have poured out from youth-led organizations across the country, including in Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, California, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Leaders thanked Biden for stepping aside and celebrated the chance to rally around a new candidate. On Friday, a coalition of 17 youth-led groups endorsed Harris.
“This changes everything,” said Zo Tobi, director of communication for the Movement Voter Project, a national progressive funding group focusing on youth-led organizations. “The world as it is suddenly shifted into the world as it could be,” Tobi was quoted as saying by AP.
As the campaign enters a new phase, both Harris and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, are focusing on younger voters who could be crucial in some of the most contested states.
Harris recorded a brief video message shown Saturday at a conference of Gen Z activists and elected officials in Atlanta.
“We know young voters will be key, and we know your vote cannot be taken for granted,” Harris told the gathering, emphasizing her support for gun safety, abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, and climate action.
Eve Levenson, the national youth engagement director for Harris’ campaign, attended the conference in Atlanta and praised young voters for their enthusiastic response to Harris’ elevation as the likely nominee.
“As amazing as it is to see the tremendous youth enthusiasm online, what has been even more incredible is how that online energy has already translated into a tangible desire to take action and get involved with our campaign,” she said, noting new voter registrations, small donations from young voters, and student requests to help start campus-based campaign organizations.
Trump, in his own address Friday in Florida to a conference on faith hosted by Turning Point USA, criticized Harris as “incompetent” and “far left.” He vowed to champion religious Americans’ causes in a second White House term.
“With your vote, I will defend religious liberty in all of its forms,” Trump told the conservative group that focuses on high school, college, and university campuses. “I will protect Christians in our schools and our military and our government and our workplaces and our hospitals, in our public square, and I will also protect other religions.”
John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, who has worked with Biden, said the “white-hot energy” among young people is something he hasn’t seen since former President Barack Obama’s campaign. While there’s little reliable polling so far, he described the dynamic as “a combination of the hopefulness we saw with Obama and the urgency and fight we saw after the Parkland shooting.”
For many young people, it was the first time they felt heard and believed their actions could impact politics, he and several young leaders said.
“It’s reset this election in profound ways,” he said. “People, especially young people, for so long, for so many important reasons, have been despondent about politics, despondent about the direction of the country. It’s weighed on them. And then they wake up the next morning, and it seems like everything’s changed.”
About 6 in 10 adults under 30 voted for Biden in 2020, according to AP VoteCast, but his ratings with the group have dipped substantially since then, with only about a quarter saying they had a favorable opinion of him in the most recent AP-NORC poll conducted before Biden withdrew from the race.
That poll, along with polls from The New York Times/Siena and CNN conducted after Biden dropped out, suggests Harris starts off with somewhat better favorable ratings than Biden among young adults.
Sunjay Muralitharan, vice president of College Democrats of America, said it felt like a weight was lifted off his chest when Harris entered the race.
Despite monthly coalition calls between youth-led groups and the Biden campaign, Muralitharan spent months worrying about how Biden would fare among young voters as he watched young people leave organizations like the College Democrats and Young Democrats to join more leftist groups.
College Democrats issued statements and social media posts encouraging the party to prioritize young people and change course on the war in Gaza. They worked tirelessly to get College Dems programming at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago later this summer, but received limited outreach in return, Muralitharan said.
A Harris campaign represents an opportunity to move in a new direction, he said. The vice president has shown her vocal support for issues important to young voters such as climate change and reproductive rights, and she may be able to change course from Biden’s approach to the war in Gaza.
“The perpetual roadblock we’ve run into is that Biden is the lesser of two evils and his impact on the crisis in Gaza,” he said. “For months, we’ve been given this broken script that’s made it difficult for us to organize young voters. But that changes now.”
Santiago Mayer, executive director of the Gen Z voter engagement organization Voters of Tomorrow, said the Biden campaign “created an entirely new framework for operating with youth organizations” that can now be transitioned into supporting Harris’ campaign.
“Gen Z loves VP Harris, and VP Harris loves Gen Z,” he said. “So we’re ready to get to work for her.”
In the days since President Joe Biden exited the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, Gen Z voters have taken to social media to share coconut tree and “brat summer” memes, marking a significant shift in tone for a generation that has often felt overlooked by the Democratic Party.
Youth-led progressive organizations have warned for months that Biden had a problem with young voters, urging the president to work more closely with them on key issues. With Biden out of the race, many young leaders are now hopeful that Harris can revive support among Gen Z and harness a new wave of enthusiasm.
Since last Sunday, statements have poured out from youth-led organizations across the country, including in Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, California, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Leaders thanked Biden for stepping aside and celebrated the chance to rally around a new candidate. On Friday, a coalition of 17 youth-led groups endorsed Harris.
“This changes everything,” said Zo Tobi, director of communication for the Movement Voter Project, a national progressive funding group focusing on youth-led organizations. “The world as it is suddenly shifted into the world as it could be,” Tobi was quoted as saying by AP.
As the campaign enters a new phase, both Harris and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, are focusing on younger voters who could be crucial in some of the most contested states.
Harris recorded a brief video message shown Saturday at a conference of Gen Z activists and elected officials in Atlanta.
“We know young voters will be key, and we know your vote cannot be taken for granted,” Harris told the gathering, emphasizing her support for gun safety, abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, and climate action.
Eve Levenson, the national youth engagement director for Harris’ campaign, attended the conference in Atlanta and praised young voters for their enthusiastic response to Harris’ elevation as the likely nominee.
“As amazing as it is to see the tremendous youth enthusiasm online, what has been even more incredible is how that online energy has already translated into a tangible desire to take action and get involved with our campaign,” she said, noting new voter registrations, small donations from young voters, and student requests to help start campus-based campaign organizations.
Trump, in his own address Friday in Florida to a conference on faith hosted by Turning Point USA, criticized Harris as “incompetent” and “far left.” He vowed to champion religious Americans’ causes in a second White House term.
“With your vote, I will defend religious liberty in all of its forms,” Trump told the conservative group that focuses on high school, college, and university campuses. “I will protect Christians in our schools and our military and our government and our workplaces and our hospitals, in our public square, and I will also protect other religions.”
John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, who has worked with Biden, said the “white-hot energy” among young people is something he hasn’t seen since former President Barack Obama’s campaign. While there’s little reliable polling so far, he described the dynamic as “a combination of the hopefulness we saw with Obama and the urgency and fight we saw after the Parkland shooting.”
For many young people, it was the first time they felt heard and believed their actions could impact politics, he and several young leaders said.
“It’s reset this election in profound ways,” he said. “People, especially young people, for so long, for so many important reasons, have been despondent about politics, despondent about the direction of the country. It’s weighed on them. And then they wake up the next morning, and it seems like everything’s changed.”
About 6 in 10 adults under 30 voted for Biden in 2020, according to AP VoteCast, but his ratings with the group have dipped substantially since then, with only about a quarter saying they had a favorable opinion of him in the most recent AP-NORC poll conducted before Biden withdrew from the race.
That poll, along with polls from The New York Times/Siena and CNN conducted after Biden dropped out, suggests Harris starts off with somewhat better favorable ratings than Biden among young adults.
Sunjay Muralitharan, vice president of College Democrats of America, said it felt like a weight was lifted off his chest when Harris entered the race.
Despite monthly coalition calls between youth-led groups and the Biden campaign, Muralitharan spent months worrying about how Biden would fare among young voters as he watched young people leave organizations like the College Democrats and Young Democrats to join more leftist groups.
College Democrats issued statements and social media posts encouraging the party to prioritize young people and change course on the war in Gaza. They worked tirelessly to get College Dems programming at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago later this summer, but received limited outreach in return, Muralitharan said.
A Harris campaign represents an opportunity to move in a new direction, he said. The vice president has shown her vocal support for issues important to young voters such as climate change and reproductive rights, and she may be able to change course from Biden’s approach to the war in Gaza.
“The perpetual roadblock we’ve run into is that Biden is the lesser of two evils and his impact on the crisis in Gaza,” he said. “For months, we’ve been given this broken script that’s made it difficult for us to organize young voters. But that changes now.”
Santiago Mayer, executive director of the Gen Z voter engagement organization Voters of Tomorrow, said the Biden campaign “created an entirely new framework for operating with youth organizations” that can now be transitioned into supporting Harris’ campaign.
“Gen Z loves VP Harris, and VP Harris loves Gen Z,” he said. “So we’re ready to get to work for her.”
