A newfound sense of hope, but a need for values > virality
Youthful energy and excitement for both candidates could lead to high youth voter turnout in November. But to win over young voters, it will come down to messaging on the issues.
What a month! If you had asked me a mere two weeks ago if I thought there would be high youth voter turnout in November, my answer was no (despite hope that somehow things would turn around).
In conversations since literally last summer (when it became clear that President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump were the frontrunners to become their parties’ presidential nominees), the number one feeling I heard from young people was an overwhelming sense of frustration about their options for president in 2024. But in recent months for Republicans, and in the past couple of weeks for Democrats, that calculus has totally changed.
Let’s start with the Republicans. Trump’s popularity with young people has surged as of late. I documented it a bit in this dispatch from the RNC. But it goes back many months.
At Run GenZ’s Iowa conference in January, I asked the slate of young conservatives how the felt about a second Trump presidency. Some were wary of his character and rhetoric, but none said outright that they wouldn’t vote for him. Then came Trump’s conviction, the first presidential debate, the attempted assassination against him, and his desire thereafter to unite the country, which I’ve heard has resonated with many who were on the cusp of throwing their support behind him.
“You've had about as many things as you can have to unify a base, including the young vote on our side, to roll into November and be incredibly proud and excited to vote for the candidate,” Run GenZ’s Joe Mitchell told me this week. “There’s not a lot of stuff outside of what's happened this summer that's going to be able to top our nominee getting shot… and surviving and then showing up to the RNC convention two days later. I think that because it's been so drastic, that energy is going to hold.”
There’s been so much talk about Democrats success reaching Gen Z online. But Trump and his vice presidential pick J.D. Vance are also leaning into the digital discourse too by tapping into a male-dominated online culture with the likes of Dana White, the Nelk Boys, and Logan Paul. Vance took a page from Trump’s playbook and joined TikTok this week, posting his first video with the Nelk Boys (he also appeared on their ‘Full Send’ podcast today). And according to this piece in the Wall Street Journal, Trump allies are looking to turn that online popularity into IRL voter mobilization with a $20 million push targeted at young men.
Now on to the Democrats. Beyond the coconut tree emojis and brat memes of last week, there’s been a surge of organizing momentum behind Vice President Kamala Harris.
Groups like March For Our Lives (which has never endorsed a presidential candidate before) threw its weight behind Harris. And Gen Z for Change, which had not endorsed Biden, said they will be “mobilizing young voters in support of” Harris.
NextGen America, a youth voter engagement organization also supporting the vice president, told me they saw a 200% increase in volunteer sign-ups since Biden dropped out of the race. And they had their most successful calling day of the year last weekend with almost 30k calls placed.
Gen Z money 💸
And as part of its fundraising update today, the Harris campaign said since June it saw “more than 10x the number of Gen Z donors.”
When it comes to the world of pop culture, Megan Thee Stallion and Quavo joined Harris at a campaign rally in Atlanta this week. Quavo, for his part, endorsed Harris with a compelling call for gun violence prevention, after the rapper’s nephew and Migos’ bandmate Takeoff was killed in a shooting in 2022.
“If you’ve never voted before, make sure you get out and vote right now,” Quavo said at the rally.
And before performing the song ‘Body,’ Megan Thee Stallion told the Atlanta crowd: “If you want to keep loving your body, you know who to vote for.” She posted a reel with the hashtag “hottiesforharris” that has 21 million views. Harris also posted with the singer.
Also this week, a coalition called Swifties for Kamala formed and has started organizing online. So far, they have. 85.6K followers on TikTok, 50.3K followers on X, 21.5K followers on Instagram, and 15.9K followers on Threads. They also have a Substack, called , and their linktree page includes a voter registration link via I Will Vote.
All this said, not only is Harris embracing pop culture, but pop culture is embracing her. This is hugely important when it comes to vibes ahead of November.
A newfound sense of hope, but a need for values > virality
On both sides of the aisle, I’m hearing a sense of hope. Young people now feel they have someone to organize around and vote for, not just against. And for that reason, we could see high youth voter turnout numbers in November.
But at the end of the day, young voters will prioritize values over virality and both presidential campaigns need to lean into the issues they care about most.
As Riley Haught, who’s 25 and from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, told me during a listening session last week, while she’s excited about Harris, she still feels “so much weight and pressure around all the crises that our generation is facing.” She cited the cost of housing, climate change, and Israel’s war in Gaza. Haught is the national organizing manager for Un-PAC, a youth-led political action committee with a mission to “fix our broken democracy.”
While the issues Haught listed certainly animate a subset of young people on the left, poll after poll shows that for all young people, the number one issue truly is the economy — demonstrating that at the end of the day, younger voters aren’t so different from older voters after all.
While the mode of communication to this voting bloc matters, the message will be the most important piece of the equation to win over young voters, and I’m keeping my eyes peeled for how both presidential campaigns message on the economy in particular when speaking to groups of young people moving forward.