Kamala Harris setting out on monthlong bus tour to mobilize young voters: Report
Julia Johnson
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A little over one year away from the 2024 presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris is launching a bus tour to mobilize youth voting across the country.
The “Fight for our Freedoms College Tour,” headlined by Harris, will begin at Virginia’s Hampton University on Sept. 14. Some of the states she will visit are key battlegrounds in next year’s electoral contest, such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Virginia, per ABC News.
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In a statement, Harris said, “This generation is critical to the urgent issues that are at stake right now for our future.”
“It is young leaders throughout America who know what the solutions look like and are organizing in their communities to make them a reality,” the vice president continued. “My message to students is clear: We are counting on you, we need you, you are everything.”
However, the tour won’t be confined to four-year college campuses. Harris plans to visit various types of schools, including community and technical colleges, apprenticeship programs, and historically black colleges and universities. She is an alumna of the famous HBCU Howard University.
It begins at a time when students are returning and getting settled in for their fall semesters. Youth voters will be important for Democrats to mobilize in 2024, and President Joe Biden isn’t particularly strong among the voting bloc. The group chose Democratic candidates over Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections by a large margin, 63% to 35%, per exit polling. However, their excitement around Biden isn’t quite as palpable.
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According to a recent poll, just 14% of 18- to 34-year-olds strongly approve of Biden’s job as president. He is strongly approved by the largest share in the age group of 34 to 49. Just 58% of youth voters would choose him if the Democratic primary were held today. And if the presidential election were held today between Biden and former President Donald Trump, Biden would win the age group by just 3 percentage points — a departure from Democrats’ usual lead with the bloc.
Harris has become something of a liaison between their reelection campaign and young and minority voters, while Biden is doing most of the legwork when it comes to manufacturing and labor unions. Harris maintains the lowest vice presidential net favorability rating in history, per a recent NBC News poll.