Harris drawing parallels to Obama as young voters eye chance to be part of historic first

A ripple of energy has gone through young voters eager to have the chance to help make Kamala Harris the first female president in U.S. history, not to mention the first Black woman president and the first South Asian president.

Some have even compared it to how Millennial voters felt with Barack Obama in 2008. Angela Demas, 21, of East Lansing, Mich. said she remembers hearing about that excitement as a child.

"I could definitely see a lot of people were enthusiastic and ready for change," Demas, who in 2024 is running for local office, said. "I think that has resurfaced again as Kamala Harris is running."

The connections between Harris and Obama appeared immediately on social media once President Joe Biden on Sunday said he'd stand down from his own re-election campaign and instead would endorse his vice president in the White House race against Republican Donald Trump. Memes were shared hundreds of thousands of times. People remixed her old speeches, her laugh and her dance moves.

Harris' campaign has also embraced it, albeit carefully.

It is too soon to say whether the excitement around Harris translates from social media to votes in November. But early indicators show she is invigorating a group of Americans who earlier this year were cold to the Democratic administration's re-election prospects due to a long list of grievances, including concerns over climate change, inflation and Israel's war in Gaza. Many had previously told USA TODAY they were largely weighing either not voting or were drifting toward the Republican ticket, which now includes the 78-year-old Trump and the 39-year-old JD Vance.

"All they've known is Trump or Biden," Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., currently the youngest member of Congress at 27, told USA TODAY. "A lot of them weren't born during Obama and a lot of them were too young, they don't remember. So 100 percent, for a lot of them it's the first time they felt hope at that level."

More: Black women mobilize for Kamala Harris' campaign but brace for backlash

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who was also the youngest member of Congress when she was elected, recalled in an interview how she was a teenager when the 47-year-old Obama won the White House in 2008.

"I totally can see how some people feel similarly, and how this is a similar watershed moment. Not just the fact that we are really talking about the possibility of the first female to be elected president of the United States, no less a woman of color and no less a black woman, no less Indian, Caribbean descent as well," she said. "It's very exciting and invigorating for a lot of people."

Turning that excitement into votes will be key, said Hans Riemer, who was Obama's national youth vote director in the 2008 general election campaign against John McCain, then a 72-year-old Republican senator from Arizona. Young voters have become a pivotal voting block, he said.

"Joe Biden's inability to close the deal with young voters contributed to his position in the election, and Harris has the potential to generate a lot of interest there, and it could be a critical part of her majority," Riemer said. "Trump was doing much better with young voters and with voters of color than a Republican candidate has in a long time, and in a lot of polling that is the difference between Trump's victory margin, or at least a lot of it. So if Kamala can hold the Biden voters and pull in young voters, voters of color who has drifted to Trump, she'll win."

For Obama, it all happened organically. The first generation of the iPhone came out in the summer of 2007, right in the middle of an intense Democratic primary battle that included Hillary Clinton and Biden. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter were still relatively new and gaining in popularity. Young voters trusted that they could change the outcome of the election by voting for him.

"That was the core," Riemer said. "They believed in their power. Barack Obama believed in them, and told them that over and over again, and they responded. And you need to have that kind of environment for young voters to feel like to build that social movement, frankly, a sense of empowerment, impact and a candidate who believes in it."

Harris has an existing community of online supporters left over from her 2019 bid for president, called the KHive.

The Trump campaign has made a heavy pitch for younger voters this cycle too, and some polls have shown the effort paying off. A March poll from the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics said that while Biden led among young voters, Trump's were more enthusiastic about voting for him.

"Polling shows President Trump crushing Kamala Harris with young voters," Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said. He did not point to a specific poll.

Early indicators

There are some very early indicators a shift is underway.

Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, president of NextGen America, said Harris has often polled “very high” with young voters, even when Biden’s approval wasn’t as strong with the same generational demographic.

But after the excitement that the vice president has already garnered, especially with online viral memes, Tzintzún Ramirez said she would “put all my savings” on the fact that Harris will score high with young voters.

“This is the most diverse generation in American history, so I think a lot of young people see their story in her story,” she said. “We expect that this will really increase motivation for young people to turn out this election, and also voters of color.”

Vote.org, a non-partisan voter registration organization, announced Wednesday there was a nearly 700% increase in daily voter registrations — more than 38,500 new registrations — in the 48-hour period following Biden's announcement.

Voters aged between 18 and 34 accounted for 83% of new registrations.

Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., said people recognize a chance to vote for hope, just like he did in 2008.

"Many young people were just demoralized about what their future held and now they see a candidate I think that is connected to them," said Swalwell, a 43-year-old congressman who ran against both Biden and Harris in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries.

Harris has spoken on 12 college campus' since the Supreme Court ended abortion protections provided under Roe v. Wade. She was already becoming a familiar face to younger voters, Swalwell said.

"She's not new to this. She's not like Johnny come lately with young people. She's been pretty dialed into what they care about," he said.

Voter voices

Taino Moreno, 17, was at a donor event for Dave Min, a member of the California State Senate, when he heard the news that Biden dropped out of the election.

He will be attending Harris’ alma mater, Howard University in the fall.

“I grew up with a Black president, and I was excited,” Moreno said. “I felt like I could do that too...I haven't had a feeling like that since I was a little boy.

Briana Lee, 18, an incoming freshman at UC Berkeley who lives in Huntington Beach, California, was 2-years-old when Barack Obama was elected president.

“Young people have experienced the most political apathy in terms of not wanting to vote and because we saw Trump and Biden go against each other in 2020, I know a lot of people said they didn't want that rematch," Lee said. "I think it has a lot of potential to reinvigorate the youth voter base."

Justyn Kelly, 21, studying political economy at the USC, from LA, voted in the 2022 midterms, but this is the first time he's been able to vote for president.

“I'm very excited to vote for somebody who will be – and will be, I'm going to put that out there – the first female president of the United States.”

-Rebecca Morin, Karissa Waddick in Washington contributed to this article

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kamala Harris has Gen Z appeal with young voters looking for change