In August, the Kamala Harris campaign launched a Twitch account to reach young people and some of the “hardest-to-reach voters.” The account debuted in the vein of Harris’ acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, which is perhaps to be expected from an account owned by the president’s campaign. But on the night of Oct. 9, the channel streamed live gameplay for the first time, as well as a live feed of vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s speech in Arizona.
As Wired points out, Twitch creator Preheat kicked things off by playing World of Warcraft on Channel.net at 6:30pm ET. Preheat told Wired that he volunteered for the job because of Harris’ platform, but he also provided commentary on the game and encouraged viewers to vote. “GOP is the opposite of POG,” they said at one point during the stream. A spokesperson told the magazine that the campaign hopes to reach the young male vote, who make up a large portion of Twitch’s user base, by streaming its rallies alongside WoW gameplay. .
Harris is not the first politician to use Twitch to reach voters. President Joe Biden’s administration streamed the inauguration on the same website, while Donald Trump’s campaign has been streaming rallies and speeches on the platform since 2019. The former president’s account was suspended following the January 6th Capitol riot, but was reinstated in July of this year. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is also on Twitch and streamed herself several times while playing Among Us.
