CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said Thursday that Kamala Harris is still struggling to gain traction with young voters, calling Taylor Swift’s recent endorsement “absolutely welcome” by the Harris campaign.
Pointing to national polling data, Enten noted that at this point in the race in 2020, President Biden had a 28 point advantage among voters under the age of 30. Biden’s advantage fell to seven points in July of this year, just before he exited the race. As the Democratic nominee, Harris managed to somewhat improve on Biden’s standing with the critical voting bloc, reaching a 15 point advantage this month. But she is still significantly lagging behind Biden’s 2020 numbers, Enten said.
“Kamala Harris will absolutely welcome in the support of Taylor Swift if she can move young voters at all because the bottom line is: Kamala Harris is in fact not doing as well among young voters as you might expect a Democrat to necessarily be doing based upon history,” he told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.
Swift, an outspoken critic of former President Trump, endorsed Harris after the presidential debate Tuesday. In an Instagram post that she signed “childless cat lady,” the pop icon said Harris “fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”
Enten said Swift could give the campaign a significant boost if she manages to convince fans to register to vote, something he cited as another roadblock for Harris in states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina, where the number of new registered Democrats has significantly dropped from 2020.
“The bottom line is Republicans have been doing a heck of a lot better job of registering voters than Democrats have over the last four years,” Enten said.
Swift seemingly understood the assignment. The link she attached to her endorsement urging people to register to vote was reportedly visited 337,826 times in just two days, NBC News reported.
The pop icon repeated her call to register to vote in her acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards on Wednesday, telling fans, “if you are over 18, please register to vote for something else that’s very important to us, the 2024 presidential election.”
Young voters across the country recently told Fox News Digital that the economy, immigration and foreign policy are their top concerns heading into November.
According to a recent New York Times/Siena survey, Harris leads Trump by 10 percentage points among voters aged 18-29.
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