Kamala Harris‘ presidential campaign is on the hunt for young voters, and to reach them where they are, the Democratic nominee tried out a novel format on her official Twitch account. That’s where the Harris team streamed a recent rally led by its Vice President candidate Tim Walz. At the same time, a split screen showed the streamer Preheat playing the classic MMORPG World of Warcraft.
Harris quietly launched her Twitch account ahead of her speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, but before the WoW stream, the channel had not been used to broadcast any video games. Instead, it served as an alternative distribution hub for Harris and Walz’s campaign stops.
But the Harris team shifted its strategy when Walz went to Tucson, Arizona for a rally. To make the Twitch broadcast of the event a bit more exciting, Harris enlisted Preheat, a WoW player and caster who is sympathetic to the Democratic nominee and her political platform. On Twitch, before an audience of about 5,000 viewers, Preheat announced his intention to vote for Harris in this November’s election.
As far as we know, this is the first time that a political rally and a gameplay session have been combined in a split-screen format — at least in the U.S. That said, the strategy of satisfying short attention spans by adding video games to long-form content has an extensive history. In fact, MrBeast used to edit his videos that way back when he was first starting out on YouTube.
Preheat’s take on the format provided a mix of political commentary and in-game hijinks. At one point during the stream, he criticized the Republican-backed plan known as Project 2025. He became so focused on the rally that he lost sight of his game and quipped “wait, am I dying?”
If the Harris campaign wants to use streaming to appeal to young voters, it may want to choose a newer game than WoW. The Blizzard MMO was the hottest game of the moment back when John Kerry was running for president, but even if Harris’ approach is a bit dated, it is worth a try during the campaign season that has been dubbed the “influencer election.” The Kamala Twitch account now has more than 23,000 followers, and there’s time to take that number even higher before November.