MADISON, Wis. — For months, Evan McKenzie warned that Democrats were in serious trouble with voters like him.
The 23-year-old union organizer living in Wisconsin's progressive stronghold of Madison told NBC News in December that his anger at President Joe Biden’s support for Israel in its war in Gaza — which is targeting Hamas but causing significant civilian casualties — was forcing him and many of his friends to turn away from the candidate they supported in 2020.
“He is allowing this war to happen and is funding this war,” McKenzie said in an interview that month. “I don’t know what will happen if I don’t vote for him, but I know it won’t be me supporting that.”
But now, with Biden out of the presidential race and Vice President Kamala Harris leading the Democratic ticket, McKenzie says he is relieved and feels a new sense of hope.
“I’m much more excited about the candidate now than I was about Biden,” he said. “Right now, I’m leaning towards voting for Kamala Harris, but there’s many months to go and I need to see actual policy progress in order to feel confident in that vote.”
McKenzie is part of a noticeable shift reflected in public polling over the past few months. Back in June, a New York Times/Siena poll showed President Joe Biden leading Donald Trump by just 6 percentage points among registered voters younger than 30 nationwide, a number far short of his 24-point margin among 2020 voters in exit polls. But by late July, Harris’ lead among the group in Times/Siena polling had grown to 18 points.
From snappy social media videos swiping at the Trump-Vance ticket, to embracing the lime green “brat” ascetic on the campaign’s X page after pop star Charli XCX’s apparent endorsement, the Harris campaign has been leaning into renewed interest from a demographic that was a key part of the 2020 winning coalition. And Madison — a booming city built around the biggest public university in Wisconsin — will be at the center of the fight for young voters in the battleground state.
Nada Elmikashfi, a 28-year-old climate activist and legislative staffer in Madison, told NBC News in December that she didn’t know if she could vote for Biden again, saying it would be a decision made in the voting booth.
“On climate, on Covid responses, you can tell he and his administration were doing great work, but I think after Oct. 7, the question became a matter of human rights,” Elmikashfi said.
This month, she told NBC News she is watching the new Democratic candidate closely, saying, “It was exciting, it was terrifying, it was so many different emotions that I felt when Joe Biden stepped down and endorsed Kamala Harris.”
Elmikashfi says she feels Harris talks about Palestinians in a more empathetic way, though she was troubled by Harris’ initial response to pro-Palestinian protesters in Detroit, when Harris told a group interrupting her event, “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that.”
That response turned Elmikashfi off. “It came off condescending, it came off out of touch,” she said, “I want to vote for Kamala, but that depends on her policy change in terms of Gaza.”
NBC News spoke with Elmikashfi and McKenzie along with Jared Morningstar, 28, a Madison voter who said he’s been dissatisfied with the Democratic Party for years, going back to his 2016 vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson over Hillary Clinton.
In December, he told NBC News that he would likely vote for Biden as the “lesser of two evils,” but that he wanted to watch the primary process play out because he was considering sitting out of the presidential race altogether or supporting a third-party candidate.
He now says he’s “really a bit torn” about his decision this year, but is less likely to consider voting third-party, partially because of the weight of living in a critical swing state. Trump won Wisconsin by less than 23,000 votes in 2016. Biden won Wisconsin by less than 21,000 votes in 2020.
“I’m trying to vote very strategically, but at the same time, I do want to ensure that there’s going to be a little more follow-through with some of these progressive visions than there was with the Biden administration in his first term.”
He also called Harris a more effective messenger of progressive priorities, and added, “I think regardless of some of the ways that I’ve been dissatisfied with the Democratic Party, I absolutely think a Trump presidency would be a significantly worse outcome for this country.”
The shifting perspectives present a new opportunity for Harris, but this group warned their support is far from locked in.
“The organizers are more energetic about Kamala, the young people are more energetic about Kamala,” McKenzie said — before cautioning the campaign: “That can change really quickly. It’s a two-way street.”
