At the University of Pittsburgh, as freshmen students took their first steps on campus and swarms of lanternflies buzzed through the air, the sounds of Taylor Swift and Chappell Roan drifted from a folding table draped with an iridescent pink tablecloth.
Fruit snacks and colorful butterfly hairclips were laid out next to pink stickers that said “Saving Democracy is Hot” and “Hot Peeps Vote.” The organizers wore shirts that said “Hot Girls Vote."
The voter registration drive was run by NextGen America, a progressive organization that’s trying to increase turnout among young women in battleground states such as Pennsylvania.
Meredith Wenthur, who recently moved from North Carolina to Pittsburgh to start college, stopped by the table to register and said she plans to vote for Democrat Kamala Harris. She was thrilled by the vice president's performance in the debate with Republican Donald Trump, saying it was “really something" to see a woman assert herself like that against a man.
While young women have leaned more Democratic than Republican, this year's election could see a historic gender gap as Harris tries to become the country's first female president and the fight over abortion rights remains an animating issue.
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