CHICAGO — Vice President Kamala Harris’s ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket appears to be energizing some of the youngest voters in the party: Generation Z.

Gen Z is among the key voting demographics Democrats have been trying to appeal to during the 2024 cycle. A New York Times-Siena College poll released in June showed President Joe Biden bleeding support from the generation, posting just a 6% advantage with young voters in a matchup against former President Donald Trump. In 2020, Biden won with a 24-point margin among voters ages 18-29 in exit polling.

But since Biden announced his withdrawal from the race and Harris ascended to the top of the ticket, her campaign has heavily courted young voters, with her campaign embracing an online phenomenon known as “brat summer.”

“Brat summer” has taken the internet by storm, with lime green and black text becoming synonymous with the sensation. It stems from musician Charli XCX’s album released earlier this summer called brat.

It first became connected with Harris’s campaign after Charli XCX issued an endorsement of sorts of Harris online, saying the vice president “IS brat” the same day Biden issued his own endorsement of her.

Harris’s campaign instantly latched on to the online phenomenon, with the Kamala HQ account on X swapping its banner to a photo with a lime green banner that reads “kamala hq” in the same font as the musician’s album.

Her campaign and its allies have also capitalized on internet memes surrounding a viral clip of a speech Harris gave in 2023 where she recounted a phrase her mother used frequently.

“She would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’” Harris said at the time. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

The Kamala HQ account’s bio reads “adding context” in an apparent reference to the speech.

Harris’s campaign’s utilization of social media trends has “really impressed” 19-year-old Sunjay Muralitharan, a national vice president for the College Democrats of America.

Muralitharan said typically when politicians try to relate to young voters, such as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s infamous “Pokemon go to the polls” moment during her 2016 presidential campaign, it can “come off as, like, really preachy or just out of touch” and “pandering.”

“Pandering is the best word to put it, but they’ve done it in such an effective way because they’ve allowed youth voices to be members of this team, to be the ones leading the messaging place,” said Muralitharan. “So I think they’ve done a fantastic job solely because they’re willing to treat youth voters as the stakeholders of today, which they are.”

Rotimi Adeoye, a 27-year-old DNC delegate from Pennsylvania, said Harris was campaigning on “such an impressive level that it’s really making sure she’s being seen” in every state.