BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – With just 40 days left until election day, candidates are working to sway young voters in an unconventional way.
When edits of Kamala Harris to the tune of Chappell Roan began popping up on Elisabeth Crawford’s TikTok this summer, she felt like the campaign was speaking to her.
“It made me be like, ‘they’re trying to get a target audience,’ and I was like, ‘I’m kind of falling for it too because how else are they going to reach these people,” said Crawford, a UVM sophomore.
UVM political science sophomore Ruby Espejo noticed that the Vice President and former president Donald Trump using social media to grab young viewers’ attention.
“It’s a great tactic and I honestly enjoy how they’re trying to gravitate toward those voters,” said Espejo.
Posts across social media platforms on the Vice President’s campaign account, Kamala HQ, feature clips of Harris at rallies set to popular music, memes jabbing at Trump, and other nods to pop culture.
The Trump campaign uses social media too and recently brought out TikTok creator Bryce Hall and the social media group Nelk Boys for endorsements at a rally in Las Vegas.
The Pew Research Center found that 18 to 29-year-olds trust social media sites almost as much as national and local news organizations – with nearly half using TikTok to keep up with politics.
UVM Professor Alex Garlick sees this in his own students and believes it could sway more young people on election day.
“The chance that Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala on Instagram or a Donald Trump podcast could make a difference in the election is mobilizing people to vote that maybe are not committed voters,” said Garlick.
Garlick notes that getting your election information from social media has pros and cons.
The informal format can make key issues easier to digest and engage with. However, content can be oversimplified or misconstrued by creators.
That’s why some look to more traditional content.
“I tend to gravitate toward all of the live debate and talks preferred over anything that isn’t live because I don’t really believe or trust things now that AI is so intense,” said Amelie Jarvis of Burlington.
As with everything on social media, experts say fact-checking is key to ensuring you consume accurate information.
Espejo feels it’s something her generation needs to do more of – especially during this election.
“I think a huge part of our society and generation, especially for Gen Z, is trusting people who we shouldn’t trust, and there’s just a lot of misinformation out there,” said Espejo.
A poll by Harvard University found that more than half of young Americans plan to vote in this election. Some of their top concerns are a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, economic issues, and declining confidence in public institutions.