Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is launching an early voting push targeting students on battleground state college campuses. The effort consists of concerts, block parties and tailgates in addition to a new seven-figure targeted ad buy focused primarily on reaching students through social media platforms.
The ad buy will geographically target students in battleground states across platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube Shorts. Some of the ads, according to the campaign, are designed to mirror popular social media trends.
The “Vote for Our Future” tour will put the campaign’s principals alongside high-profile surrogates working to mobilize young voters across the battlegrounds, not just engaging the students but also encouraging them to register to vote and vote early.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., helped formally launch the tour with an event at Penn State on Friday. On Tuesday, second gentleman Doug Emhoff and Maya Harris, the vice president’s sister, headlined an early vote mobilization event in Durham, North Carolina.
On Wednesday, Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., will speak at a get-out-the-vote rally at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, while former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas will speak with students across two college campuses in Arizona. And Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will speak at a concert and mobilization event at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, on Thursday.
In addition to the digital ad blitz, the campaign will work to further reach students through flyers, as well as posters placed on campus kiosks and on-campus transit systems at 76 college campuses.
The college campus tour and the ad buy are the campaign’s latest effort to gin up support among a voting demographic that has historically voted for Democrats as former President Donald Trump also makes a play for the group through podcast appearances and celebrity and influencer endorsements.
Harris, in a virtual address in July at the Voters of Tomorrow Summit in Atlanta, called young voters “key” to her path to victory.
“In 2020, it was young voters who turned out in record numbers and elected Joe Biden president of the United States and me the first woman elected vice president of the United States,” she said. “This November, we will win again. And we need your support.”
A CNBC/Generation Lab survey released Tuesday found that Harris has grown her lead among young Americans, who historically lean Democratic. The survey found she has a 20-percentage-point lead among Americans ages 18 to 34 in head-to-head matchups with Trump, with 60% of respondents saying they would vote for Harris and 40% saying they would vote for Trump.
Harris throughout her term as vice president has emphasized reaching younger, college-age voters. Last year, she engaged with more than 15,000 students across eight states through a college campus tour focused specifically on abortion. In addition, she has hosted several roundtable discussions with students at historically Black colleges and universities.
Harris has praised Gen Z voters as politically engaged and proactive in pursuing solutions to issues that matter to them. Eighty-eight percent of Gen Z voters say they are likely to vote in the general election, according to an NBC News Stay Tuned Gen Z poll released last month.
“I love Gen Z. These young leaders are so clear-eyed. You know, they’ve only known the climate crisis, they’ve only known active shooter drills,” Harris said Monday at a campaign event in Malvern, Pennsylvania. “They’re so wonderfully impatient, right? They’re ready to get in there. Let’s invest in them.”
Harris has said provisions of her “Opportunity Economy” agenda, including a proposal to provide $25,000 of down-payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, would benefit younger voters in particular.
