Kamala Harris’s supposed mass appeal to youth voters may be more of a mirage than reality. According to CNN data guru Harry Enten, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee is in a worse position among young voters than Joe Biden was during the last presidential election. Enten notes that in 2020, Biden won voters under the age of 35 by a whopping 21-point margin. Meanwhile, Harris only leads Trump in recent 2024 election polling by nine points.
“If this is unique support among young voters, I’d like to know what non-unique support is. Is it even worse than this?” Enten said. He noted that Harris is only doing slightly better than Biden had been prior to his decision to drop out of the race.
Corporate media talking heads have pushed the narrative that Harris, who turns 60 in October, is uniquely positioned to capture the youth vote in November. However, the only data point they seem to cite is the endorsement of Harris by British singer Charli XCX, who described Harris as “brat” in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
The term “brat” refers to a woman who is messy, parties, and bucks social norms such as being “straight-laced.” Social media users jumped on Charli XCX’s support for Harris, dubbing the coming months “Brat Summer.”
The Harris campaign has embraced the connection, using the chartreuse green coloring theme associated with “brat” on their rapid response account on X.
Addressing turnout motivation among young voters, the data presented by Enten shows only a marginal improvement from Biden to Harris. Overall, just 39 percent of Democrats said they were more likely to vote after Biden left the race. Meanwhile, 55 percent said they were not. Among youth votes between 18 and 29, those margins only modestly improve.
WATCH:
Brat Summer or not, I looked into whether Harris has unique appeal to young voters. She doesn’t. She’s doing much worse against Trump than Biden did in 2020.
Moreover, young Democrats are NOT disproportionately more motivated to vote than other Democrats because of Biden’s exit pic.twitter.com/WpH5Sf4vPE
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) July 24, 2024
