Kamala Harris’ election campaign has turned to Twitch and ‘World Of Warcraft’

Getting the gamers' attention

In recent years, politicians have been using Twitch and popular video games to connect with younger voters, and now Kamala Harris‘ VP pick Tim Walz had his speech aired right next to a World of Warcraft streamer narrating some gameplay.

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The speech was streamed via Vice President Kamala Harris’ Twitch account yesterday, October 9. The move follows a trend of Democrat politicians using Twitch to engage with voters they may otherwise miss through more traditional campaigning means.

The speech plays on the left-hand side of the screen in a vertical slice, while the gameplay appears on the right in a more square format. Before the speeches began, preheat was telling viewers how to access resources on voting, such as where and when to vote in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

Harris launched her Twitch account back in August. At the time, a spokesperson said it was part of a campaign strategy to reach young voters who may be disaffected by modern politics.

Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez played Among Us with many popular streamers back in October 2020 before the November election, and the video quickly became one of the most-watched on Twitch, with 400,000 people tuning in live.

Streaming the speech alongside WoW gameplay follows an emerging online trend of two videos playing side-by-side in order to retain people’s attention. One clip usually contains someone talking or sharing some information, while the other shares game footage.

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