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Tim Walz Rally goes live on the World of Warcraft Twitch stream

Tim Walz Rally goes live on the World of Warcraft Twitch stream

Kamala Harris' campaign is livestreaming a Tim Walz rally from Arizona and Azeroth tonight. Yes, Azeroth – the planet of World of Warcraft.

This is the first time the Harris campaign has streamed live gameplay on its Twitch account. The event, taking place at 6:30 p.m. ET, will include a live feed of Walz's Arizona speech with Preheat, a Twitch creator, playing the game and providing commentary. Preheat is expected to highlight her connection to the campaign and encourage viewers to make a voting plan.

The Harris campaign launched its Twitch account in August, where it streamed the vice president's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Joining Twitch is part of the campaign's strategy to reach young, dissatisfied voters, a campaign spokesman said at the time.

“Our job in the campaign is to cut through a historically personalized media landscape and bring the vice president and her vision for the future directly to the hardest-to-reach voters and those who will decide this election,” said Seth Schuster, a Harris spokesman. WIRED announced the decision in August.

Preheat played before Wednesday's rally World of Warcraft and teaches viewers how to defeat one of the newer raid bosses from The War Within expansion. He has over 50,000 followers on Twitch and the Harris campaign described him 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 named several Harris campaign platforms.

The Harris campaign's goal is to combine the rally with World of Warcraft The gameplay is intended to increase Harris and Walz's visibility among young men, who make up the majority of Twitch's user base, a Harris spokesperson told WIRED. In recent weeks, the campaign has specifically tried to reach young men by advertising at 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 after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol but was reinstated last summer. The Biden campaign played around with formats, at one point streaming a feed from the back of a train while he was campaigning, accompanied by relaxing music.

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