Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Con't

Vice President Kamala Harris is leading the charge for the Democrats getting out the vote in 2024 with a college tour starting next week in Virginia.

 

Vice President Kamala Harris will soon be hitting the road for a monthlong college tour, traveling to more than a dozen campuses across eight states. The trip underscores both the value Democrats are placing on younger voters and the more forceful role Harris is seeking to play on key issues like abortion access ahead of the 2024 election, after weathering two years of scrutiny and low approval ratings.

The vice president's "Fight for our Freedoms College Tour" begins on Sept. 14 at Hampton University in Virginia. It will focus heavily on mobilizing young voters -- some of whom have expressed less than favorable views of President Joe Biden -- in states including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin and Virginia, with additional campus visits and details to come.

News of the tour, first reported by ABC News, comes as students return to school for the fall semester.

Young voters proved to be a key constituency for Democrats, boosting candidates in the last midterm and presidential election cycles. In 2020, for example, Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia in nearly 30 years -- with voters younger than 30 accounting for 21% of the returns, up from 15% in 2016 and backing Biden by more than 10 points, according to exit polls.

This year, however, Biden has faced low favorability marks from younger voters, according to ABC News/Ipsos polling.

In her tour, Harris is expected to visit a broad range of campuses, from four-year state schools to community colleges, technical colleges, apprenticeship programs and historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs.

"This generation is critical to the urgent issues that are at stake right now for our future," Harris said in a statement.

"It is young leaders throughout America who know what the solutions look like and are organizing in their communities to make them a reality," she added. "My message to students is clear: We are counting on you, we need you, you are everything."

As vice president, Harris has more recently been leading the administration's work on reproductive rights, reducing gun violence, addressing climate change and voting access -- issues that advisers expect to be central to her message as she meets with the students across the country.

 

This is a very, very smart move by the Dems here to tap VP Harris as the face of their college GOTV efforts, and especially making sure that tour is going to HBCUs like Hampton U.

There's a reason why red states are doing everything they can to keep college kids from voting at all.