Initiative Will Target 150 Campuses in Battleground States, Double Number of Organizers on College Campuses
As college students return for the fall semester, Team Harris-Walz is launching a new “Back-to-School” campaign to engage and mobilize young voters across 150 campuses in the battleground states. The campaign formally kicked off with campus visits from Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson at the University of Pittsburgh and from Rep. Maxwell Frost, the first Gen Z member of Congress, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Bennett College in Greensboro – a historically Black university. Throughout the fall, the campaign will reach college students through additional visits from key surrogates, targeted ads and by doubling its campus organizing staff. Team Harris-Walz has more youth-outreach staff than any previous presidential campaign.
This push builds on Vice President’s successful college tour last summer that galvanized tens of thousands of young voters on the issues that matter most to them – from reproductive freedom to common sense gun safety laws, climate action, voting rights, and more.
“Young voters know the impact that this election will have on their futures, from the freedom to make our own health care decisions to addressing the climate crisis to being safe from gun violence to our ability to find a home and pay the rent,” said Representative Maxwell Frost. “It is clear Vice President Harris is fighting for us, while Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda is to drag young people into the past — that’s why I’m rallying young voters around the Harris-Walz campaign. The only way we will win is by organizing everywhere and it’s up to us to turn the energy we’re seeing into action to win in November. I am confident that we will see record youth turnout this November.”
Recent elections have proven the growing power of young voters, and this campaign is putting in the hard work to win this critical voting bloc in November. This “Back-to-School” push will meet students where they are and turn the organic enthusiasm for Vice President Harris’ candidacy into increased voter registration, volunteering, and most importantly, votes. The campus campaign includes:
On-campus advertising and social media outreach: Team Harris-Walz is launching a back to school advertising campaign that includes a national Snapchat takeover, targeted social ads, and on-campus advertising in campus newspapers and on college websites. The campaign is also launching a new digital ad, “Future,” which features the Vice President speaking directly to students about all that’s at stake in this election, from gun reform to reproductive rights. Vice President Harris also penned a letter to students that will be published in campus newspapers, writing that young people’s votes have “never mattered more” and that “when young people fight for progress, it changes the course of our nation.” Finally, the campaign launched a microsite to help students volunteer and register to vote.
On-campus organizing: Team Harris-Walz is doubling its staff dedicated to youth and campus engagement to 150 organizers and fanning that staff out across all the key battleground states – with a focus on state schools, community colleges and minority serving institutions (MSIs), including the University of Michigan and Morehouse College, among many others. Team Harris-Walz has more youth-dedicated staff than previous presidential campaigns and started its efforts to reach students on campuses earlier than ever, in March 2024, which ensured that we had strong campus organizing programs ready to go when students returned to campus in the critical months before Election Day.
College campus barnstorm tour: The Team Harris-Walz college campus barnstorm tour kicked off with the first Gen Z member of Congress, Rep. Maxwell Frost, stopping at UNC Chapel Hill and Bennett College in North Carolina, and Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson meeting with students at the University of Pittsburgh. In the coming days Rep. Frost will also travel to Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. And over the next several weeks, key surrogates will travel to campuses across all the battlegrounds. The goal of this tour is for students to hear directly from the campaign and to excite students to register to vote and join our campus organizing efforts.
Across all of the campaign’s youth voter outreach, the campaign will underscore the Vice President’s vision for a new way forward and highlight the dangers of Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda. Vice President Harris will create an opportunity economy, where every young American has a chance not to just get by but to get ahead – whether that be getting a good job, buying a first home, or starting a new business. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is promising to raise costs on middle-class Americans and rip away their reproductive freedoms and access to health care. Instead of investing in young people’s futures, Trump wants to drag us back into the past – and through our tireless outreach to young voters both on college campuses and beyond, the Harris-Walz campaign will make clear all that’s at stake for our future in this election.
