Kamala Harris’ campaign will livestream a Tim Walz rally from Arizona and Azeroth tonight. Yes, Azeroth, the planet of world of warcraft.
This will be the first time the Harris campaign will livestream games on its Twitch account. The event, which will take place at 6:30 p.m. ET, will include a live stream of Walz’s speech in Arizona with Preheat, a Twitch creator, playing and providing commentary. Preheat is expected to highlight its connection to the campaign and encourage viewers to make a plan to vote.
Harris’ campaign launched its Twitch account in August, where it streamed the vice president’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Joining Twitch was part of the campaign’s strategy to reach young, disaffected voters, a campaign spokesperson said at the time.
“Our job as a campaign is to break away from a historically personalized media landscape, bringing the vice president and her vision for the future directly to the hardest-to-reach voters and those who will decide this election,” said Harris spokesman Seth Schuster. he told WIRED about the decision in August.
Before Wednesday’s rally, the Preheat was played world of warcraft and instruct viewers about how to defeat one of the newest raid bosses from The War Within expansion. He has more than 50,000 followers on Twitch and was described by the Harris campaign as a volunteer. When asked by WIRED for comment on why they were livestreaming the campaign, Preheat said they were volunteering for several reasons and cited several of the Harris campaign’s platforms.
The Harris campaign’s goal of combining the rally with world of warcraft The goal of the game is to increase Harris and Walz’s visibility among the young men who make up the majority of Twitch’s user base, a spokesperson for Harris told WIRED. Over the past few weeks, the campaign has intentionally tried to reach young men through advertising during major sporting events and on gaming sites like IGN.
The Joe Biden and Donald Trump campaigns launched Twitch accounts in 2020. Trump’s account was suspended following the Jan. 6 attack on the capital, but was reinstated last summer. Joe Biden’s campaign played with formats and once broadcast a broadcast from the back of a train while traveling through the campaign trail to relaxing music.