Tim Walz holds rally with World of Warcraft Twitch streamer to appeal to young men

Democratic nominee for president Kamala Harris’ running partner Tim Walz was featured in a Twitch stream from the campaign’s account. This comes as the Harris-Walz ticket has been struggling to connect with male voters on the largely male social media platform. 

A live audio feed of Walz speaking in Arizona played during Wednesday's rally and was accompanied with gameplay by Twitch streamer Preheat playing World of Warcraft. Preheat also added commentary to the stream on the broadcast that was shown across the site, including to his more than 50,000 subscribers on the platform.



The move is a part of the Harris campaign’s plan to increase its appeal to young men, a voting demographic that they have been lacking in and the Trump campaign has been vying to capture. According to a New York Times Sienna Poll from September, young men under 30 are more likely to support Trump than Harris than women their same age. Around 53 percent are planning on voting for Trump.

The youngest block of male voters aged 18-24 are also identifying as more conservative than liberal, per a recent poll. “Our job as the campaign is to break through a historically personalized media landscape, taking the VP and her vision for the future directly to the hardest-to-reach voters and those who will decide this election,” Seth Schuster, a Harris spokesperson, told WIRED in August.

The Harris camp launched its Twitch account in August, where it also streamed her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. The stream, which lasted just an hour and a half, garnered over 80,000 views, an increase from the channel's previous streams, with its previous two broadcasts garnering just over 31,000 views collectively.