DNC Unveils Youth Voter Push on Debate Day: “Google Project 2025”

The Democratic National Committee, on Tuesday, messaged to over 100,000 Philadelphia-area students to “Google Project 2025.”

Ahead of the night’s Kamala Harris-Donald Trump debate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, students at Drexel University, Lafayette College, Temple University, University of Pennsylvania and Widener University were greeted with new campus kiosks, billboards, flyers and a mobile billboard video in a youth voter push tying Trump to Project 2025, the controversial set of conservative policy proposals also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project.

The initiative from the conservative Heritage Foundation, published in 2023, lays out a series of conservative and right-wing policies, and is billed as a “180-day playbook” to be implemented by the next Republican president. The Harris campaign and several speakers came out in full swing against the proposal during August’s Democratic National Convention, and have since made the 900-page plan their top anti-GOP attack.

The push across campuses on Tuesdays highlighted some of the fundamental freedoms that would be stripped by the proposal, including the government monitoring pregnancies, threatening access to IVF treatments and imposing a national abortion ban.

“Young people in Philadelphia have the power to make a difference in this election,” Abhi Rahman, DNC Deputy Communications Director, told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement. “As students in Philadelphia return to campus, Democrats are making sure they know that their future hangs in the balance this November. That’s why, ahead of tonight’s presidential debate, the DNC is meeting students where they are on campuses and across the greater Philadelphia metro to make sure young voters know what they have to lose: reproductive freedoms, student loan debt forgiveness, checks on presidential power, an economy that’s not just rigged for billionaires, and the future of our democracy.”

Rahman added, “The stakes couldn’t be higher this November, and tonight, Vice President Harris will lay out her vision for Pennsylvania and the nation — where fundamental rights are protected and every vote counts.”

The campus messaging follows a DNC stunt over the weekend that targeted college football fans at the University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin and Penn State University. During the second week of the 2024 college football season, planes carrying banner messages specific for the universities flew across the sky, courtesy of the Democratic National Committee, telling students to “sack Project 2025.”

Trump has claimed to have “no idea” about Project 2025, telling Fox & Friends after the DNC, “They know I have nothing to do with it. A group of people got together, they drew up some conservative values, very conservative values. In some case perhaps they went over the line, perhaps they didn’t. I have no idea what Project 2025 is.”

Trump spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, previously told The New York Times, “The truth is President Trump has said repeatedly Project 2025 has nothing to do with his campaign.”

Vice President Harris and former President Trump will face off at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia for a 90-minute debate beginning at 6 p.m. PT / 9 p.m. ET on ABC. This marks the 2024 election cycle’s first presidential debate between Harris and Trump following President Biden dropping out of the race on July 21 and Harris becoming the Democratic party’s presidential nominee.