Harris Bets Big on Social Media With ‘Headquarters’ Launch — But Can It Win Young Voters?

Vice President Harris is launching a new social media venture aimed at young voters, the latest move in the Democratic Party’s bid to match Republicans’ online reach ahead of the 2026 midterms.Ms. Harris announced “the new Gen-Z led progressive content hub” on Thursday, rebranding her dormant 2024 presidential campaign accounts — “KamalaHQ” — as “Headquarters.” The rebooted accounts boast 1.1 million followers on X and 5.4 million on TikTok.“I have good news,” Ms. Harris said in a promotional clip. “So Kamala HQ is turning into Headquarters. And it’s where you can go online to get basically the latest of what’s going on and also meet and revisit with some of our great courageous leaders.”The project is in partnership with a progressive advocacy group, People For the American Way, which characterized the endeavor in a press release as “an effort to mobilize pro-justice, pro-fairness, pro-democracy young people against far-right extremism.”“Conservatives build permanent organizing infrastructure. Progressives have historically built machines that dismantle after Election Day. Headquarters is the end of that cycle,” the statement said. Ms. Harris will serve as chair emerita without direct editorial oversight. The project will be advised by her former deputy campaign manager and will welcome some former KamalaHQ staff members.Within hours of launch, Headquarters’ X account was trading jabs with GOP commentators and taking shots at President Trump. One post mocked Mr. Trump’s suggestion that he should “probably make it” into heaven, adding: “Mentioned 38,000 times in the Epstein files btw.” When the official GOP account responded to Ms. Harris’ launch video with an ironic thumbs-up, Headquarters replied with a middle finger emoji.The account is already drumming up expected criticism from conservative commentators. Some zeroed in on the accounts’ username on X — “headquarters_67” — which appears to reference the “six-seven” meme popular among Gen Alpha and Gen Z.“Could be wrong but I don’t think insulting Gen Z’s intelligence like this with dated slang references mainly popular with middle schoolers is gonna be persuasive to them,” remarked a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, Carline Downey. Conservative activist and co-chair of the Republican National Committee Youth Advisory Council, CJ Pearson, offered a similar assessment on X: “Kamala’s low IQ digital staffers have apparently still not come to terms with the fact that their lame slop that they thought was winning over Gen Z resulted in young Americans swinging double digits to the Republican Party in 2024.” The initiative also drew skepticism from some Democrats. A former White House staff secretary under President Biden, Stefanie Feldman, questioned whether engagement metrics — likes and views — matter when posts draw overwhelmingly negative responses. “Is there any evidence that shitposting actually helps Democrats win???” she asked.MSNow contributor and former Democratic aide, Rotimi Adeoye, shared similar doubts: “I am skeptical of a Gen-Z based Kamala Harris content group given that she did pretty terribly with young voters. Looking forward to them proving me wrong, but I am just not sold on another influencer slop hype house,” he wrote on X. The former deputy campaign manager for Mr. Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign, Rob Flaherty, pushed back on Ms. Feldman’s critique: “I don’t think this represents a serious or sophisticated understanding of what digital is or does but thanks for your contribution,” he retorted.

Harris Bets Big on Social Media With ‘Headquarters’ Launch — But Can It Win Young Voters?

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