Vice President Kamala Harris is attempting to win over younger male voters during the last full week of the 2024 election cycle by tying in with various video game manufacturers.
Among the games the Harris campaign is including in its outreach is Fortnite, a multiplayer game in which players fight to be the last one standing and where they can create their own levels. The Harris campaign has promoted its own level, titled “Freedom Town, USA,” for players to access, which features various signage promoting the vice president’s campaign.
squad up, go vote
— Official Team Kamala (@TeamKamala) October 28, 2024
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Harris also appeared on the Club Shay Shay podcast, which was sponsored by the video game Call of Duty Black Ops 6. It is currently the only episode of the podcast to be sponsored by the game, which was released on Friday.
The episode featuring Harris was prefaced by an ad for the game, in which a man gives out “I Voted” stickers to people at a voting location. The game has also released similar promotions tying into the election in a humorous manner, including one showcasing the same man looking at polling data for the Electoral College.
Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), Harris’s 2024 running mate, has also contributed to the Harris campaign’s effort to win over gamers, joining Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to stream the Madden NFL and Crazy Taxi video games. The two streamed on the platform Twitch, a platform commonly used to stream video games.
Brought back a Dreamcast classic. pic.twitter.com/iGwAzToQz4
— Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) October 27, 2024
It is not the first time the Democratic presidential ticket has attempted to appeal to younger voters through video games. Then-presidential candidate Joe Biden utilized the life simulation video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons to promote yard signs supporting the Biden-Harris campaign. Former President Barack Obama also promoted his first presidential campaign in Burnout Paradise, a 2008 racing game that featured billboard ads for his campaign.
Former President Donald Trump is also seeking the younger male voting bloc, though he has opted to make various appearances on podcasts, the most recent of which was on The Joe Rogan Experience. A large majority of the podcasts Trump has appeared on, such as This Past Weekend w/Theo Von and ImPaulsive, appeal to male audiences.
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Ahead of the 2024 election next week, data from Harvard Youth Poll has indicated that Trump is beating Harris among white men between the ages of 18 and 29. Among non-white men in this same age demographic, Harris is leading Trump by 23 percentage points, a smaller lead than the 30% lead Biden had in spring 2024 before he opted out of his reelection bid.
The Washington Examiner has contacted Epic Games and Activision, the publishers of Fortnite and Call of Duty Black Ops 6, respectively, for comment.