Harris maintains polling lead among young voters as both candidates ramp up appeals

As the race for the White House remains a toss up, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have ramped up their courtship of a crucial voting bloc: young voters

A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found Harris leading Trump by 14 points among voters under 30 years old. That lead appears to track with the newest data from the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School published this month, which shows Harris continuing to lead among the nation's youngest voting cohort.

In a five-way matchup that includes third-party candidates, the Harvard poll found that Harris leads Trump by 20 points among registered voters under 30 years old (53%-33%).

"As we saw in 2020, this latest edition of the Youth Poll shows that young voters are poised to make up an important part of the Democratic base. In just a few days, we will see how efforts from both parties to reach Gen Z pay off," Chair of the Harvard Public Opinion Project Anil Cacodcar told ABC News.

"Though Harris has a strong lead with young voters nationally, the race among those under 30 appears to be narrower in the battleground states," Cacodcar added, pointing to the poll's finding that Harris is only ahead of Trump by 9 points among registered voters under 30 in these critical locations (50%-41%).

With just days until Election Day, both Trump and Harris are working to appeal to all undecided voters -- including those who are younger -- given that polling shows a tight race for the White House. Exit polls show younger voters cast ballots more reliably for Democrats in 2020 -- but not every segment of young voters may be as energized for the Democratic ticket this time around.

Although a majority of both men and women under 30 support Harris, there are certainly disparities between those margins. Among the multi-candidate matchup, the Harvard poll found Harris to be leading Trump by 30 points among young women, but only 10 points among young men.

The latest ABC News/Ipsos poll published Sunday sees similar differences between genders, as Harris leads Trump by 40 points among female voters under 30 years old (69% to 29%).

"That compares with a non-significant Trump +5 among men that age, 49-44 percent," the poll found.

The Trump campaign has made strides among men in recent weeks, specifically targeting young white males. Tapping into the "manosphere," the former president has appeared on podcasts with predominantly younger male audiences such as "This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von" and "The Joe Rogan Experience," to name a few.

Continuing to court this demographic, Trump's campaign and surrogates have been employing misogynistic language, including a now-deleted advertisement from Elon Musk's America PAC that repeatedly called Harris the "C-Word," as well as several speakers making racist and sexist comments on stage prior to Trump delivering his closing remarks at New York's Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

Trump surrogate Nikki Haley criticized the campaign's male-dominated appeal, telling Fox News on Tuesday that they should not get "overly masculine with this bromance thing" because it "borders on edgy to the point that it's going to make women uncomfortable."

When asked about Trump's appeals towards young men, 20-year old Savana McLaughlin, a student at Virginia Tech University, told ABC News that she does not feel that the campaign is "portrayed just for men."

While McLaughlin had not been exposed to many of Trump's male-targeted podcasts and comments, she recognized his social media as an effective place in courting young voters like herself.

"I've seen a lot of edits [of] Trump and his campaigning videos, and I think those are actually really cool … he gets his point across and his values and what he plans to do in office," she said, comparing them to Harris' TikTok videos which she finds to be more "joke-wise."

Some young voters also find in-person appeals to work better. "Donald Trump was in Greenville, North Carolina within the past week or two … I think that was really effective," 22-year-old Hunter Hogan, a student at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, told ABC News. "When you listen to somebody speak in person … it really does change your mind," he added, emphasizing how this event resonated with his young peers.

On the other hand, Harris has struggled to secure the male vote, something she admitted to Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer during a stop in Kalamazoo last week while the two shared a beer.

"So, everyone agrees that we need to move the ground with men," a hot mic caught Harris saying.

Her campaign has attempted to appeal particularly to young gamers in recent days, including launching a Fortnite Map called Freedom Town on Monday. According to Verto Analytics, the popular video game has almost 400 million active accounts, attracting majority men aged 18-24.

Further fueling the youth gamer appeal, her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez faced off in a game of Madden NFL 25 and Crazy Taxi that was streamed on Twitch last week.

It remains unclear if these efforts will be enough to move the needle among this crucial voting bloc.

During Harris' rally in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday evening in which she delivered her campaign's closing remarks, 21-year-old Ramiro Paz Lopez told ABC News that "men just have to listen."

"I think Kamala and Walz are presenting their message pretty strongly, and I just think men just have to listen and go away from their bubble and just be willing to hear other points of views," he said.

In the final week before Election Day, Harris has made a point to call out first-time voters in the crowd, asking them to raise their hands.

"I see the promise of America in all the young leaders who are voting for the first time," she said Wednesday during a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. "I love you guys, because you are rightly impatient for change."

Harris has also been keen on winning over young voters through celebrity mobilization, with pop stars such as Beyonce, Maggie Rogers and Gracie Abrams appearing at her recent rallies.

Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost, the youngest and first Gen Z of member of Congress who is campaigning on behalf of Harris, explained during a press call on Friday morning that Harris will continue to "bridge the gap between cool and consciousness, and go to places of culture -- concerts and different events like that -- where [they] can reach young people who might not care about politics, or maybe they're undecided."

Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump's running mate, hosted a Gen Z Town Hall at High Point University in North Carolina Thursday morning. Vance also sat down with top podcaster Joe Rogan this week.

"Much has been made about the importance of the youth vote and its impact on the results of the 2024 election," the Trump campaign said in a press release, emphasizing polling data that demonstrates increasing young male support for the Republican ticket.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Anil Cacodcar's name.