Gen Z activists, in visit to Wild campaign, say Harris candidacy boosts down-ballot Democrats

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — When a group of young Democratic activists embarked on its Tour to Save Democracy this summer, traveling to closely contested congressional districts to persuade fellow members of Generation Z to vote in November, President Joe Biden still was seeking a second term.

The group’s task looked substantially easier by the time they reached U.S. Rep. Susan Wild’s Allentown campaign office on Sunday evening, a week after Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

“It was very difficult to get people, namely Gen Z, energized about this election with President Biden at the top of the ticket, even though he has done a really good job,” said Sam Schwartz, 20, the executive director of Tour to Save Democracy.

“Kamala Harris running for president… has completely changed the game.”

Harris’s swift rise to the top of the ticket unleashed a wave of Democratic enthusiasm, members of the Tour to Save Democracy group said, citing record-breaking fundraising hauls, quickly growing social media followings and conversations with prospective voters tuning in to the race for the first time.

Wild, too, said she has seen a new energy among voters, and believes the change at the top of the ticket will benefit the party’s down-ballot candidates by boosting turnout.

“I've seen incredible enthusiasm and excitement about the fact that the race has been shaken up,” she said, especially “from people that were kind of lost on politics generally, who felt that neither of the presidential candidates was really representative of them.”

A spokesman for State Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, Wild’s Republican opponent, disagreed Monday, writing in an emailed statement that nothing about the race had changed.

“Voters know that Susan Wild and Kamala Harris are 100% behind the failed policies that delivered the worst inflation in decades, a wide-open border, and a collapse in our international standing,” wrote campaign spokesman Arnaud Armstrong.

“The only thing that the Biden replacement saga has revealed is just how desperate, self-interested, and anti-Democratic Susan Wild is when it comes to holding on to power. Wild spent years showering President Biden with praise before she unceremoniously stabbed him in the back."

Tour to Save Democracy

The activists traveling with Tour to Save Democracy first waded into politics after personally experiencing a mass shooting: surviving one, losing a family member in one, or both.

In the aftermath, they recounted pursuing legislation aimed at curtailing gun violence, and quickly concluding that the only way to secure priorities such as universal background checks and red flag laws was to first cement a Democratic majority in Congress.

“It kind of was a no-brainer of how gun violence was going to get mitigated, right?” Schwartz said. “By working with Democrats, trying to get them elected.”

From that desire to get Democrats elected to achieve policy goals, the Tour to Save Democracy was born as a way to reach young voters in key U.S. House districts.

The group argued that their Gen Z peers are best reached through a similar path: by connecting personal experiences of active shooter drills in school, a changing climate or the cost of higher education to Democratic policy prescriptions.

“It’s really not so much about the candidates so much as the things that the candidates are championing,” Schwartz said. “If young people don’t believe that change is possible, they’re not going to come out to vote.”

To that end, Wild reinforced her support for many of those perceived priorities Sunday, including for a federal ban on assault weapons similar to the one in effect from 1994 to 2004.

She said supporting LGBTQ+ rights and abortion access was a “non-negotiable” part of her candidacy.

To address an ongoing youth mental health crisis, Wild called for federal funding to help people who want to become a mental health professional pay for school.

The Mackenzie campaign will not cede Gen Z voters, making the pitch that as a younger candidate – 41 to Wild’s 67 – and a newcomer to Washington, he is better positioned to address their priorities.

“Being 16 years younger than the average member of Congress, Ryan is the candidate for the next generation. He knows that young people are getting left behind by our leaders, especially when it comes to high prices, debt, housing affordability, competition for jobs, and more,” Armstrong wrote.

Mass shootings are best prevented by tackling the youth mental health crisis, he wrote: “Ryan knows that we need to take these dual crises seriously, and start uncovering, examining, and confronting the factors that have led us to this point."

For the recent burst of enthusiasm among Democratic voters to benefit Wild, it will have to last through November. She said she isn’t worried.

“It’s 100 days," Wild said. "That’s a lot better than having to sustain it for two years."