Harris touring colleges in effort to mobilize younger voters for Biden

Vice President Harris will travel to roughly a dozen college campuses over the next month as part of an effort to mobilize young voters ahead of the 2024 election.

Harris is set to embark on the "Fight for Our Freedoms College Tour," where officials said she will meet with students and highlight issues that are top of mind for younger voters, such as abortion, gun safety, climate change and LGBTQ issues.

“This generation is critical to the urgent issues that are at stake right now for our future,” Harris said in a statement. “It is young leaders throughout America who know what the solutions look like and are organizing in their communities to make them a reality. My message to students is clear: We are counting on you, we need you, you are everything.”

The White House said Harris will highlight the Biden administration's accomplishments that have helped young people and urge attendees to register to vote and stay politically engaged.

Harris will travel next week to Hampton University in Virginia and North Carolina A&T in Greensboro. Later in the month she will visit Morehouse College in Atlanta, and the vice president also has visits planned to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.

Harris's college tour comes as students are returning to campus for the fall semester and as the Biden campaign seeks to mobilize and motivate young voters, who helped propel President Biden and Harris into the White House in 2020.

Biden won 59 percent of voters under the age of 30 in 2020 who did not vote in either of the two previous elections, while former President Trump won just 33 percent of those voters. Voters under the age of 30 made up 15 percent of all voters in 2020, according to Pew Research Center.