WASHINGTON — When Vice President Kamala Harris is in Chicago on Friday to headline the Everytown for Gun Safety conference, she will hold, before she speaks, an off-the-books private meeting with a small group of young gun violence prevention activists.
Unreported until now, Harris — who has youth voter turnout in her portfolio — has been conducting listening sessions across the country to better understand the issues youths care about, that is, the 18- to 25-year-old Gen Zers and the up-to 29-year-old millennials.
These meetings — Friday marks her 14th — are not on the daily schedule the White House releases. The sessions usually include about 10 people, last about 20 minutes and wrap with a group photo with the vice president.
The Biden/Harris 2024 campaign knows a big youth vote is key to winning a second term. Young voters, if they vote, trend Democratic. Biden won 60% of the 18-to-29 vote in 2020.
The campaign points to private poll data to make the point that what counts with Harris — no matter her favorable ratings with all registered voters — 40% as of Tuesday, according to a Los Angeles Times poll — is that she motivates young voters, especially younger voters of color.
“The youth vote has been an essential part of Democratic success over multiple cycles, beginning when Gen Z turned of age in 2018,” said John Della Volpe, the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. Della Volpe, the nation’s top youth pollster, has briefed Harris and her team.
Harris, 58, the first female, Black and South Asian American to be vice president, started her listening sessions with Gen Z and millennial youths last September, in advance of the 2022 midterms.
When it comes to rallying the youth vote, Sheila Nix, the vice president’s campaign chief of staff said, “We see her out there speaking on several key issues … reproductive rights, gun safety, small business. And these issues really resonate with young voters, women, voters of color. Those will all be key constituents for her, and that’s where she really resonates.”
Biden-Harris campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz added, “Young voters are activated around abortion and also democracy, which are two of the biggest issues.”
The 13th behind-the-scenes session was also in Chicago — on July 24 — when Harris met with young Latino leaders before keynoting the UnidosUS 2023 Annual Conference at McCormick Place.
Harris wanted “to get a sense of what struggles they’re facing and what they want to hear from their elected officials. And more importantly, if our accomplishments are well known by younger folks, which we are finding that they’re not,” said Megan Jones, the vice president’s director of public engagement.
In Chicago on Friday, Harris will huddle with a small group of gun violence prevention activists before she talks to the Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund’s annual Gun Sense University conference at McCormick Place. The gathering includes volunteers from Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, as well as gun violence survivors.
On stage, Harris will be in a conversation with Moms Demand Action Executive Director Angela Ferrell-Zabala and actor Jason George, who’s active in the gun violence prevention movement.
This comes a day after all the leading groups dedicated to curbing gun violence endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket, the first time the organizations issued a joint endorsement.
Before her Chicago visits, Harris had off-the-books sessions with:
• Tribal youth leaders July 6 at the Gila River Indian Community near Phoenix
• Student climate leaders in Denver on June 16
• On June 2 — National Gun Violence Awareness Day — at John R. Lewis High School in Springfield, Virginia
• First-generation college students at the University of Reno in Nevada on April 18
• Climate activists in Miami on March 8
• Young men of color Feb. 8 at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta
• On Jan. 12, student climate leaders at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor
• Days before the midterms, on Nov. 5 with Howard University students at the historically Black school in Washington
• On Sept. 22 — with Latino leaders — not all youths — at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
• At Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina, on Sept. 20, another historically Black school
• Student climate leaders Sept. 14 at the University of Buffalo in New York
• Young men of faith at the National Baptist convention Sept. 8, in Houston
Young voters, said Della Volpe — are an “evolving demographic.” The messenger has to “align with young voters, and I think that is the case with Vice President Harris.”
