Kamala Harris’ ascent to the top of the Democratic presidential ticket was felt almost immediately among young Black voters at the Atlanta University Center like Marchellos Scott.
Scott, 21, is a Morehouse College senior and an organizer of AUC for Harris, an effort to bolster the Democratic ticket that formed last weekend on the same campus where students two months ago protested President Joe Biden’s commencement address. Scott now sees his peers responding to Harris with “a different energy.”
“I was like, ‘This could be a big thing. It could be possible.’”
The candidacy of Harris — who today will underscore Georgia’s importance by making her third stop in Atlanta since mid-June — appears to have re-energized some adult Gen-Z voters. In particular, those between the ages of 18 and 27 this year, including a cohort of Black students and activists in Atlanta, have begun organizing around her campaign in ways they hadn’t for Biden. And that could have big implications in November.
Black Gen Zers represent a critical segment of the electorate in a state where many participated in a series of anti-war protests earlier this year, including more than 6,000 people who engaged in a Democratic primary protest vote against Biden’s Gaza war policy. In 2020, young voters helped swing Georgia, and thus the election, in Biden’s favor by less than 12,000 votes. It was the first time a Democrat won the state since 1992. The party, which counts Black voters as its most reliable constituency, hopes to repeat that victory.
But Biden’s support among young adults, including Black Georgians, nosedived earlier this year largely due to concerns about his age, the state’s rising cost of living, and his policy regarding the Gaza humanitarian crisis.
Winning Georgia’s 16 electoral college votes is more crucial for former President Donald Trump than Harris, according to University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock III, who said a Harris win here in November would make it nearly impossible for Trump to retake the White House.
That means Harris needs to lure back as many of those young voters as possible.
“If Trump is losing Georgia, then he’s probably losing a number of other states, and he will retire once again to Mar-a-Lago,” Bullock said.
Polls showed Biden’s support among young adults, including Black Georgians, took a nosedive earlier this year, largely due to concerns about his age and his policy regarding the Gaza humanitarian crisis.
In interviews with Capital B conducted since last Friday, some young voters spelled out the reasons they’re more enthusiastic for Harris than they were Biden.
Gen Z voters were too young to cast ballots for the nation’s first Black president, Barack Obama, in 2008 and 2012. Most were too young to vote for the first female Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton, in 2016. The prospect of making Harris the first woman of color to serve as commander-in-chief has galvanized many young voters in Georgia, according to Morehouse political science professor Adrienne Jones.
“The idea that a candidate that one is excited about might actually win, I think, is real important for Gen Z voters,” Jones said. “For them, it is a real possibility that they can support a candidate who looks like them and who shares some of their priorities. And they are willing to participate in that effort.”
Jones said she noticed the same rise in enthusiasm among the estimated 40 students in her law and political issues group chat. She said students went from lamenting Biden’s advanced age and his poor June 27 debate performance to strategizing about how to help Harris become the nation’s first Black woman president.
“It was like a spark,” Jones told Capital B Atlanta. “They immediately shifted into the kinds of actions that they had ideated about prior to [July 22].”
Several AUC Democrats say they feel Biden has done a good job as president, but Spelman Democrats Vice President Ariana Levin acknowledged Trump and Biden’s ages was a problem for many of her fellow students.
“That was our biggest concern for sure,” she said.
Scott said he and other AUC Democrats spent the past week thinking of ways to get more students registered on campus once the fall semester begins in August.
One of their strategies, he said, is to persuade students who live in Atlanta but may be registered to vote in red states to consider re-registering in Fulton County, where their vote can have more of an impact on the White House race.
Scott is a Clarksdale, Mississippi, native who said he recently registered to vote here in Georgia, where he lives during the school year.
“We have a lot of students who want to change their voter registration,” Scott said.
