Harris’ Appearance On ‘Call Her Daddy’ Is More Strategic Than It Seems

Vice President Kamala Harris’ decision to appear on the podcast “Call Her Daddy” has drawn scoffs from a scattering of established news outlets, but an experiment conducted by Democratic pollsters this summer shows why the party may need to try slightly unorthodox methods to reach young voters who avoid political news.

The experiment, conducted this summer by the Democratic group Navigator Research, looked at how young voters responded to polls differently depending on what platform they were contacted on. Some polls still call people on the phone, or recruit them to participate via text, while others use online panels or recruit them over social media.

The result? Young voters who were harder to reach — meaning pollsters could only get them via text or on the phone — tended to be less Democratic, less liberal and more skeptical of politics overall than those recruited via online panel. Navigator conducted the survey in June, and found text and phone respondents were more negative about both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, and were more pessimistic about the economy.

They also watched a lot less television, which has long been the dominant method of reaching voters. A majority of young people recruited via social media reported watching live television every day, while just 12% of those recruited over text and 15% of those recruited over phone said the same.

The poll, in the end, paints a picture of a group of disengaged voters who don’t consume traditional media as much as their peers. This was the group Harris was aiming for with her appearance on “Call Her Daddy,” which began as a relationship and advice podcast aimed at young women and has since expanded to touch on mental health and social