There is a wave of energy among young voters who are eager to help Kamala Harris become the first woman president of the United States, as well as the first Black woman president and the first South Asian president.
Some have compared it to the excitement millennial voters felt for Barack Obama in 2008. Angela Demas, 21, of East Lansing, Michigan, said she remembers hearing about the excitement as a child.
“It’s clear that a lot of people are passionate and want change,” said Demas, who is running for local office in 2024. “I think that’s just come back to the surface with Kamala Harris running.”
After President Joe Biden said Sunday he was stepping down from his own reelection campaign to endorse his vice president in the White House race against Republican Donald Trump, the Harris-Obama connection quickly emerged on social media, with memes shared hundreds of thousands of times and people remixing her old speeches, laugh lines and dance moves.
The Harris campaign has welcomed the move, albeit cautiously.
It remains to be seen whether the enthusiasm surrounding Harris will translate from social media to voting in November. But early signs suggest she is energizing a group of Americans who were lukewarm about the prospects of a Democratic reelection earlier this year, citing a host of grievances including climate change, inflation and Israel’s war on Gaza. Many have previously told USA Today they are primarily considering either not voting or drifting to the Republican candidates, including Trump, 78, and J.D. Vance, 39.
“All they know is Trump or Biden,” Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Florida, who is currently the youngest member of Congress at age 27, told USA Today. “A lot of them weren’t born during the Obama administration and are too young to remember, so for a lot of them, this is definitely the first time they’ve felt that level of hope.”
more:Black women mobilize for Kamala Harris campaign but brace for backlash
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), who was also the youngest member of Congress when elected, recalled in an interview that she was still in her teens when the 47-year-old Obama won the White House in 2008.
“I completely understand that some people feel the same way and that this is a similar tipping point. We’re really not just talking about the possibility of the first female president of the United States, and a woman of color, no “Not only am I a black woman, but I’m also of Indian and Caribbean descent,” she said. “That’s very inspiring and uplifting for a lot of people.”
Translating that excitement into voting will be key, said Hans Riemer, who served as national youth voting director for then-72-year-old Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain and Obama in the 2008 general election. Young voters have become a crucial voting group, he said.
“Joe Biden’s inability to strike a deal with young voters affected his standing in the election. Harris has the potential to generate a lot of interest there, which could be a key part of her winning the majority,” Reimer said. “Trump is doing better with young voters and voters of color than any Republican candidate has done in a long time, and in many polls that’s what Trump’s margin of victory is, or at least a large part of it. So if Kamala can hold onto Biden voters and bring in the young voters and voters of color who went to Trump, she’ll win.”
For Obama, it all happened organically. The original iPhone was released in the summer of 2007, in the midst of a fierce Democratic primary that included Hillary Clinton and Biden. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter were still relatively new and growing in popularity. Young voters believed they could change the outcome of the election by voting for Obama.
“It’s a jointr“They believed in themselves,” Reimer says. “Barack Obama believed in them, and he told them over and over again, and they responded. And, frankly, you need an environment in which young voters want to build a social movement — a sense of empowerment, of influence, and of candidates who believe in that.”
Harris already has a community of online supporters called the KHive, which is left over from the 2019 presidential election.
The Trump campaign has stepped up its outreach to young voters this election, and some polls suggest the efforts are paying off: A March poll from the Harvard Kennedy School of Politics found Biden leading among young voters, but Trump supporters were enthusiastic about voting for him.
“Public opinion polls are showing President Trump dominating Kamala Harris among young voters,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Chung said, without citing specific polls.
Early signs
There are some very early signs that change is afoot.
Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez, president of NextGen America, said Harris often receives “very high” approval ratings among younger voters, even as Biden’s approval ratings have not been as strong among his peers.
But given the excitement the vice president has already generated, especially through viral memes, Tzintzun Ramirez said he’s “all betting” on Harris’s popularity among younger voters.
“This is the most diverse generation in American history, so I think a lot of young people see their story in her story,” she said. “I hope that this will really motivate young people, and voters of color, to get out and vote in this election.”
Vote.org, a nonpartisan voter registration organization, said Wednesday that daily voter registrations had increased by nearly 700% in the 48 hours following Biden’s announcement, with more than 38,500 new people signing up.
Voters between the ages of 18 and 34 accounted for 83% of the new registrations.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., said people recognize the opportunity to vote for what they want, just as he did in 2008.
“A lot of young people have felt depressed about their future, and now they’re looking at a candidate they feel they can connect with,” said Swalwell, a 43-year-old congressman who ran against both Biden and Harris in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
Harris has spoken on 12 college campuses since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, and Swalwell said she was already becoming a familiar face to younger voters.
“She’s not new to the job. She’s not like Johnny, who is popular with young people these days. She has a good understanding of what young people are interested in,” he said.
Voter Voices
Taino Moreno, 17, was attending a donor event for California Sen. Dave Min when he heard the news that Biden had dropped out of the election.
He will be attending Howard University, Harris’ alma mater, in the fall.
“I was excited because I grew up with a black president,” Moreno said. “I felt like I could do it too… I hadn’t felt this way since I was a little girl.”
Brianna Lee, 18, of Huntington Beach, California, and a freshman at the University of California, Berkeley, was 2 years old when Barack Obama was elected president.
“Young people have experienced some of the greatest political apathy in terms of not wanting to vote, and I know a lot of people who saw Trump versus Biden in 2020 said they don’t want a rematch,” Lee said. “I think a rematch has great potential to energize the young voter base.”
Justin Kelly, a 21-year-old Los Angeles native studying political science and economics at the University of Southern California, voted in the 2022 midterm elections but this will be the first time he’s been able to vote in a presidential election.
“I, and right, I want the world to know that I am the first woman president of the United States.”
-Rebecca Morin and Carisa Waddick in Washington contributed to this article.
