Nearly 40K new voters registered in 48 hours after Biden’s exit

Almost 40,000 people registered to vote in the 48 hours after President Biden announced he was suspending his reelection campaign and endorsing Vice President Harris, Vote.org said.

Vote.org said 38,500 new voters registered, representing the largest number of registrations in a 48-hour period this election cycle.

Of the new voter registrations, 83 percent were from people aged 18-34, according to the voting registration nonprofit group.

“A healthy democracy depends on all Americans making their voices heard at the ballot box, and this is a highly encouraging sign that voters are ready to just that,” Andrea Hailey, the organization’s CEO, said in a statement.

Vote.org also said the new voter registration numbers top last September, when Taylor Swift urged her followers to register, which resulted in 34,000 new voters in a 48-hour period.

Since Harris announced she would be running, young Democrats and Generation Z voters have shown enthusiasm in backing her campaign against former President Trump.

Stevie O’Hanlon, the communications director for the youth-led climate advocacy group Sunrise Movement, said Harris has the “potential to be a game changer for youth voter turnout” this November.

Her campaign has already embraced TikTok trends, building off singer Charli XCX’s “Brat” album. Videos and remixes of Harris have been widely shared online in recent days, including the memes from her coconut tree anecdote during a swearing-in ceremony in 2023.

The vice president has also gained financial support recently. In the first 24 hours after Biden stepped aside, Harris raised $81 million, her campaign said, celebrating it as the highest 24-hour fundraising of any presidential candidate in history.

The Harris campaign said it brought in more than 888,000 donations from individual grassroots donors, 60 percent of whom had not previously donated in this election cycle.