From the clipped Kamala Harris “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” TikTok audios to videos mocking Trump’s rally turnouts, social media has been a key player in this year’s election. All of the viral trends and online commotion have been centered around one specific age group: Generation Z, more commonly known as Gen-Z.
For the months preceding elections, candidates and their teams will spend the majority of their time campaigning. Common campaigning strategies include canvassing and sending postal brochures across the country, but as politics across the country have changed, so have the marketing tactics. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for this year’s presidential election, has taken on the newfound approach of social media, hoping to target the newest generation of voters, better known as Gen Z.
According to a recent Time Magazine article, Vice President Harris’s main campaign account, Kamala HQ, has over one million followers on Instagram and over four million on TikTok. Pew Research found that 84% of people between the ages of 19-29 have a social media account, the most of any age group, making the majority of Harris’s audience younger generations.
Allie Sears, the sophomore Student Council Treasurer at LASA, has been following the election. She explained that social media as a news source appeals to Gen-Z for a multitude of reasons—a key one being accessibility.
“It’s easy, it’s fast, and people have access to it,” Sears said. “If you think of the New York Times or the Washington Post, you can get some articles for free, but you have to pay for a subscription to see their news. But it’s free to have Instagram, so why not get your information there? Also, it takes like thirty seconds to learn something; no one’s gonna read a whole article, that takes too long.”
Harris’ campaign team has been one of the first to use social media in this way, using viral trends and memes as a way to spread her policies, according to Time Magazine. For Sears, this contributes to her understanding of younger generations in a way other candidates don’t.
“Social media is a young person thing, and those old people don’t get it,” Sears said. “And I feel like a lot of old people discredit the value of using social media, but it spreads the message.”
Time Magazine also reported that using viral trends to promote Harris’ platform is an easy way of connecting with votes that might otherwise be hard to reach. Along with Kamala HQ, celebrities like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, and Charlie XCX have been endorsing Harris online, and their combined total of 408.3 million Instagram followers allows their reach beyond typical campaign advertisements.
“They influence [us] because they’re popular and people trust them,” Sears said. “I feel like what’s more problematic is that people don’t trust politicians so much that they are turning to singers and influencers. That’s how little respect people have for politicians.”
Other LASA students like Senior Lola Buitron highlighted social media’s tendency to become a compulsive habit. This can be harmful in other areas like time management, but it becomes advantageous for campaign accounts trying to pull new voters in.
“So many people are on it, so many people get the exposure to it,” Buitron said. “Plus, it’s addictive, it’s hard not to be on it.”
The new movement for young voters has been beneficial for pre-existing youth politics associations. Nate Whipple is the Chair of the Georgia High School Democrats, an organization that gets young people involved in politics. He discussed the ways Harris’s team utilizes social media that has made more personal connections to young voters.
“Kamala has been able to energize and engage young people in a way we have never seen, especially in a presidential election,” Whipple said. “There wasn’t really an emphasis on reaching out to people [in this way] until 2016.”
Trump was infamous for his use, and misuse, of socials like Twitter and Truth Social, according to CNN, as he commonly spread lies about other candidates or events that people would take seriously. This has made some people skeptical of using social media as their news source and its credibility, but according to Whipple, Harris has already proven she is different from other candidates.
“It sounds so bare minimum, but just the fact that Kamala hasn’t been banned or taken down from anything makes her inherently trustworthy versus the alternative,” Whipple said. “Trump has been lying for 8 years, and he’s not going to stop whether he wins or loses. It’s the contrast that makes her trustworthy.”
The successes of Harris’ new campaign strategy have been widespread, including creating more conversation, registered voters, and desire to show up at the polls in the first place, according to The Washington Post. Whipple stated that with all this influence, youth votes and turnout are gaining more significance to politicians.
“I think this campaign is the first of its size to really relate to young people, especially high schoolers, college students, recent grads,” Whipple said. “You see the Taylor Swift endorsement. That was the highest traffic Vote.org has ever had. Three hundred thousand people clicked on her link and registered. That’s a ridiculous amount of people. In 2020, she did the same thing, and 40,000 people registered. That’s about 7 times [as much]. The tide is shifting, and we’ll have a good youth turnout this year, hopefully.”
Whipple explained that social media works well because it is something other campaigning strategies are not– targeted and personal. It cares about its audience in a way a friend would, with inside jokes and commonalities. In future elections, the winning candidates will be those who notice the power of the young vote.
“Every day 1000 more Gen Z members can vote,” Whipple said. “We’re already seeing it. I think as we go on it’s only going to get more and more mainstream and widespread across pretty much every race.”
Voting allows citizens to voice who they believe should be in power. As the world continues to change, Gen-Z has shown they will continue to change with it. To register to vote, go to Vote.org.
