The Swiftie Vote: Gen Z Outreach Group Hits Engagement Milestone

Voters of Tomorrow, the country’s largest Gen Z-led grassroots political outreach group, hit a new engagement milestone for a tight election that could be decided by the youngest voters.

The group says it hit one million voter engagements, which includes 200,000 calls and 800,000 texts mostly to Gen Zers — a generation that encompasses 41 million people eligible to vote in November. Its main goal is registering voters and helping them make a plan for voting.

A Voters of Tomorrow spokesperson said a phone bank conducted jointly with Swifties for Kamala volunteers helped it reach its goal Tuesday, on National Voter Registration Day, when both parties intensified their outreach efforts to register voters ahead of looming state deadlines.

“Young people have the power to decide this election where abortion rights, climate action and our economic futures are at stake. Since Gen Z organizers know best how to mobilize Gen Z, every contact our team makes is absolutely crucial, especially in battleground states and districts,” saidSantiago Mayer, the executive director of Voters of Tomorrow, who started the group in 2019 when he was 17.

The 2024 election is becoming all about shoring up the youth vote, between Taylor Swift announcing her support of Vice President Kamala Harris to her legions of young fans, to former President Donald Trump’s attempts to reach young men.

Joe Biden had struggled to win over young voters who viewed the 81-year-old president as too old for another term; Biden was on track to lose a sizable share of the youth vote to former President Donald Trump in November, possibly risking the election for Democrats. But Vice President Kamala Harris, who accepted the Democratic nomination at a convention featuring dozens of TikTokers and content creators, seems to be bringing them back into the fold.

Voters of Tomorrow is officially nonpartisan, with a focus mainly on voter registration, including in U.S. House swing districts. But in spring, it joined more than a dozen other youth-led groups that endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket.

Its 2024 voter registration efforts are primarily targeted in Georgia, Florida and Wisconsin ― presidential battlegrounds where it says young voters are positioned to have the biggest impact in November.