Harris maintains lead in polls among young voters as both candidates increase appeals

As the race for the White House remains uncertain, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have stepped up their outreach to a crucial voting bloc: young voters.

A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found Harris leading Trump by 14 points among voters under 30. That lead appears to match the most recent data from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics released this month, which shows Harris continuing to lead among the nation’s youngest voting cohort.

In a five-way matchup that included third-party candidates, the Harvard poll found Harris leading Trump by 20 points among registered voters under 30 (53%-33%).

“As we saw in 2020, this latest edition of the Youth Poll shows that young voters are poised to make up a significant portion of the Democratic base. In a few days, we’ll see how both parties’ efforts to reach Gen Z pay off. ” Anil Cacodcar, president of the Harvard Public Opinion Project, told ABC News.

“While Harris has a strong lead among younger voters nationally, the race among those under 30 appears to be narrower in battleground states,” Cacodar added, pointing to the poll’s findings that Harris trailed Trump by only 9 points among registered voters under 30. 30 in these critical locations (50%-41%).

With Election Day just days away, Trump and Harris are working to woo all undecided voters, including younger ones, as polls show a tight race for the White House. Exit polls show that young voters voted more reliably for Democrats in 2020 — but not all segments of young voters may be as motivated for the Democratic ticket this time around.

Even though a majority of men and women under 30 support Harris, there are certainly disparities between those margins. Among multiple candidates, the Harvard poll found Harris leading Trump by 30 points among young women, but only 10 points among young men.

The latest ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday finds similar gender differences, with Harris leading Trump by 40 points among female voters under 30 (69% vs. 29%).

“This compares to a non-significant Trump +5 among men this age, 49 to 44 percent,” the poll found.

The Trump campaign has made gains among men in recent weeks, specifically targeting young white men. Tapping into the “manosphere,” the former president has appeared on podcasts with predominantly younger male audiences, such as “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von” and “The Joe Rogan Experience,” to name a few -uns.

Continuing to court this demographic, the Trump campaign and its surrogates have employed misogynistic language, including a now-deleted ad from Elon Musk’s America PAC that repeatedly called Harris the “C-word,” as well as several speakers making racist and sexist comments on stage. before Trump delivers his closing speech on Sunday at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Trump surrogate Nikki Haley criticized the campaign’s male-dominated appeal, telling Fox News on Tuesday that they shouldn’t get “too masculine with this bromance thing” because it “borders on the irritated to the point that it will make women uncomfortable.

Asked about Trump’s appeals to young men, Savana McLaughlin, 20, a student at Virginia Tech University, told ABC News she didn’t think the campaign was “portrayed only for men.”

Although McLaughlin hasn’t been exposed to many of Trump’s podcasts and commentaries aimed at men, she recognized her social media as an effective way to court young voters like her.

“I’ve seen a lot of changes [of] Trump and his campaign videos, and I think they’re really cool… he’s getting his message and his values ​​and what he’s going to do in office,” she said, comparing them to Trump’s TikTok videos. Harris that she finds more “from the point of view of the joke. »

Some young voters also find in-person calls work better. “Donald Trump was in Greenville, North Carolina, for the last two weeks…I think it was really effective,” Hunter Hogan, 22, a student at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, told ABC News. “When you listen to someone speak in person… it really changes your mind,” he added, noting how the event resonated with his younger peers.

On the other hand, Harris struggled to get the male vote, something she admitted to Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer during a stop in Kalamazoo last week as the two shared a beer .

“So everyone agrees that we need to get things done with the men,” Harris said into a hot mic.

Its campaign has tried to particularly appeal to younger players in recent days, including launching a Fortnite map called Freedom Town on Monday. According to Verto Analytics, the popular video game has nearly 400 million active accounts, attracting mostly men aged 18 to 24.

Further fueling the appeal of younger gamers, his running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez faced off in a match of Madden NFL 25 and Crazy Taxi that was streamed on Twitch last week.

It remains unclear whether these efforts will be enough to make a difference within this crucial voting bloc.

At Harris’ rally in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday evening, where she delivered her campaign’s closing speech, Ramiro Paz Lopez, 21, told ABC News that “men just have to listen “.

“I think Kamala and Walz present their message powerfully, and I just think men need to just listen and come out of their bubble and be willing to hear other points of view,” he said.

In the final week before Election Day, Harris made a point of calling out new voters in the crowd, asking them to raise their hands.

“I see the promise of America in all the young leaders who are voting for the first time,” she said Wednesday at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. “I love you guys, because you are rightly impatient for change.”

Harris has also been keen to win over young voters through celebrity mobilization, with pop stars such as Beyoncé, Maggie Rogers and Gracie Abrams appearing at her recent rallies.

Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost, the youngest and first Gen Z member of Congress campaigning on Harris’ behalf, explained during a press call Friday morning that Harris will continue to “bridge the gap between coolness and consciousness, and to go to places of culture — concerts and different events like this — where [they] can reach young people who are not interested in politics, or who may be undecided. »

Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, hosted a Gen Z town hall at High Point University in North Carolina on Thursday morning. Vance also met with top podcaster Joe Rogan this week.

“Much has been said about the importance of the youth vote and its impact on the results of the 2024 election,” the Trump campaign said in a press release, emphasizing polling data that demonstrates support growing number of young men for the Republican list.