Kamala Harris Inspires Hope Among Young Democrats

AFP/APP
Washington: US Vice President Kamala Harris’s late entry into the White House race has galvanized young Democrats, a group whose participation will be crucial if the party hopes to defeat Donald Trump in November.
When President Joe Biden announced on July 21—with two simple messages on X—that he was withdrawing from the race and endorsing Harris, 28-year-old Stevie O’Hanlon felt “relief.”
Concerns about the 81-year-old Biden’s mental acuity and his grim polling numbers against Trump had sparked “a sense of dread amongst many young people,” said O’Hanlon, a member of the youth climate activism group Sunrise Movement.
However, Harris, whose candidacy is not even two weeks old, “has generated a degree of enthusiasm that was just not there for Biden,” she explained.
For Ethan Nichols, a 22-year-old from Cincinnati, Ohio, that new energy is “palpable on the ground.”
“Friends of mine who are not politically engaged, I’ve seen them reposting memes about Kamala Harris and, you know, seemingly so excited to finally have a campaign that they feel inspired by,” said Nichols, a Democratic college student who is very active in politics.