Charli XCX Said ‘Kamala IS Brat.’ 3 Months On, Do Her Bay Area Fans Agree?

This story is part of the KQED series The Fandom Vote, exploring the election-year concerns and voting preferences of pop culture fanbases.

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ven a die-hard Charli XCX fan transported from June 2024 straight to her sold-out San Francisco show last week could be forgiven for being confused.

They wouldn’t be surprised by the stylish warehouse rave fits, of course, almost all of which paid homage to the visuals of Charli XCX’s hyperpop summer album brat in neon-matcha green. Or the excitement of the crowd, who packed out the Chase Center to watch the British artist perform alongside Troye Sivan for a night of electropop with deep roots in queer culture.

What they would likely not be able to comprehend: the shirts saying, “you think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” Or “make america brat again.” Or “demo(b)rat.”

The reason for this new presence in the Charli XCX fandom? On July 21, President Joe Biden stepped down as the Democratic presidential candidate and vice president — and the Bay Area’s own — Kamala Harris stepped forward. In the middle of the fever-pitch commentary that followed, the ever-online Charli XCX, riding high amid what had already been dubbed “brat summer,” still somehow managed to dominate the conversation with three words posted to X: “kamala IS brat.”

From this moment on, the Democratic party sought to leverage the endorsement power of the pop girls, like Charli, and co-opt the memes in pursuit of younger voters.

‘The girls came together’

One of those young voters is 18-year-old Fremont resident Talon Hollestelle. As a fan of Charli XCX’s music since they were 10, courtesy of their older sister, Hollestelle was thrilled that their preferred candidate got the brat approval.

“That’s feminism, period. That’s feminism. The girls came together,” Hollestelle said. “I was like, ‘Maybe I should vote for Kamala?’ Which I always said I was going to anyway.”

For Hollestelle, Harris is their clear choice for president. While they’re concerned about her support of Israel during its yearlong siege of Gaza, Hollestelle said the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade makes them worried about the future of constitutional rights like marriage equality under a second Trump administration. (This election season, Californians can vote on whether marriage rights for same-sex couples should be enshrined in the state constitution.)

Camillo Cervantes, 22, from San Jose, said he shared this concern for constitutional rights in the U.S. He was particularly worried about how many officials have been making decisions based on religious beliefs instead of research.

“I’m not going to knock a religion or anything like that, but I feel like once you incorporate that, it starts to steer away from statistics and science,” Cervantes said. “Topics like abortion, racial injustice, LGBT [rights] — you can talk about it for days, but I feel like we’ve been steered towards … ‘I want to make a law that gets rid of something because I think it’s okay to do that.’”

Cervantes said that this year’s election — with its too-close-to-tell polling that has Trump and Harris neck and neck — has been giving him flashbacks to Trump’s 2016 win over Hillary Clinton, who had the popular vote.

“We definitely need to get rid of the Electoral College,” he said. “I feel like it might come down to a situation like that again.”

‘Finally looking at the youths’

Before Biden dropped out of the race this summer, frustration with his performance among Democratic voters was high. And many Americans dealt with the news the way they always had: by posting through it.

Online expressions of fan culture had already found its way into American politics, and when Harris’s candidacy was announced, the memes, edits and fancams instantly turned their attention to the vice president — who had already proved a great source for out-of-context online moments.

A wave of enthusiasm lit up left-leaning voters: among them, Charli XCX-themed posts. The same “365 party girl” music that had been applied to gymnast Simone Biles. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Dennis Reynolds, Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones and The Cat in the Hat was now used for fancams of Harris.

@nbcsnl♬ original sound – Saturday Night Live – SNL

The fact that sincerity is hard to decipher online — and that many of the posters behind the Harris memes may have more ironic intentions — has not prevented the Harris campaign pumping out merchandise and images referencing pop stars like Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan, and most notably, Charli XCX’s brat brand.

For her part, 27-year-old San Francisco resident Courtney Kessler said she was excited that the Democrats were “finally looking at the youths.”

“I feel like that’s a big thing that has been missing from a lot of elections,” said Kessler, who cites her major concerns this election as reproductive rights, housing and student loans. She said she was “just really happy” to see the Democrats “modernizing their campaign strategies to actually match the voter population.”

Charli XCX herself has said she didn’t expect her “kamala IS brat” post — something she apparently dashed off poolside as a lighthearted way to welcome Harris to the presidential race — to take off the way it did. Nor for it to result in her interviews about partying getting dissected on Fox News. But “to be on the right side of democracy, the right side of women’s rights, is hugely important to me,” Charli XCX told New York Magazine. “I’m happy to help to prevent democracy from failing forever.”

Texas resident Adam Xavier Vega, 20, said they found the brat-Harris combination to be “really fun.”

“I’ve been a fan of Charli for so long,” they said. “So just seeing how much of an impact she can make on politics and stuff is just insane.”

Vega — who said they were most worried about marginalized people and lower-income families in the outcome of the election — said that it’s “very helpful” for an artist like Charli XCX to support “a candidate who’s actually trying to help.”

“I feel like a lot of her fans are like these lower-tier people who listen to her music and think it’s very inspiring,” Vega said. “Because that’s me.”

San Francisco resident Kajal Dharmar, 22, said that not only had they become more interested in the election once Harris entered the race, but they’d since observed just how much pop stars were impacting the election — including Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris, which led to a spike in visits to a voter registration website.

The Harris campaign “did a really good job of targeting the people that were my age and making content that was specifically geared towards us,” Dharmar said, noting that her reaction was, “Okay, this isn’t ugly, cringey, millennial content.”

This Very Online approach “was actually something that made me laugh a little bit,” she said. “Which I was not expecting from a political campaign at all.”

‘I guess that’s the game’

However, Khadijah Rashid, 20, was a little more perplexed. “I was really confused because [Charli XCX is] not American,” she laughed. “And so I was like, ‘What possessed you to make a comment on the American presidential candidate?’”

Rashid, who traveled from Illinois for the San Francisco show and who lists climate change and environmental sustainability as her voting priorities, noted that the Democratic Party lost many Muslim voters this year. Swing states like Michigan have a large Muslim population that has been vocal over the siege in Gaza, and the United States’ role in supporting Israel.

“A really large part of my Muslim community is planning on voting independent for the presidential election,” Rashid said — adding that this shouldn’t come across as a surprise to elected officials.

From her experience in reaching out to her representatives and senators in Illinois, she said they knew exactly why Muslim voters were upset. “I don’t think that there’s anything for me to say that they don’t already know,” she said.

Among some left-leaning voters who support Palestinians and immigrant rights, excitement for Harris began to wane around her speech at the Democratic National Convention. For them, there was a feeling her policies had strayed too close to the center of the political spectrum.

One of those voters, 19-year-old San Francisco resident Grey Davila, said they were trying not to think about the election, uneasy about the idea of Trump winning. At the same time, they said they weren’t happy with either side’s stated policies on immigration.

“It doesn’t sit with me,” they said. Undocumented people and immigrants are “trying to get here to escape persecution or war in their countries. And it’s really messed up how both parties have made this twisted perception of immigration.”

Oakland resident Jules Michicich, 26, who wore a black button-up with a lime green clerical collar, with the Charli XCX lyric ‘jesus christ on a plastic sign’ on their back — was similarly anxious but checked out.

They said that in the absence of “a pro-Palestine candidate,” they were nonetheless “hoping that if we elect Democrats, that we can at least put pressure on the Democratic Party to take a more progressive stance on certain issues.”

“The Democrats aren’t very left,” Michicich said. “We’re not very progressive and maybe haven’t been for a minute. But there isn’t really a great option when you are critical of the United States as an imperialist state.”

Unlike others, Michicich said they weren’t impressed or swayed by the Harris/brat memes — especially as they were “probably going to vote for” Harris anyway.

“It’s a little cringy, of course. I feel like most presidential campaign moves are,” Michicich said. They found it “a little disturbing” that establishments like the Democratic Party were trying to “meme themselves” as part of American politics.

“I guess that’s the game,” they said.

Walnut Creek resident Isaiah Wrice, 24, said that they were also most concerned over the siege of Gaza — but the support both Harris and Trump had expressed for Israel “makes it very hard for me as a voter to decide who I’m going to vote for.”

“Neither of them align with where I align with on the issues,” they said.

While Wrice said they usually feel safer as a California resident, they are worried about the impact of a Trump presidency on people in red states — and were particularly alarmed by Project 2025.

“All of these federal regulation groups that allow us to function as a society — they’re trying to break them down,” they said. “That’s very scary because that is something that would affect my life here.”

Knowing California is a blue state that will almost certainly vote in favor of Harris, Wrice said, “I honestly don’t even know if I’m going to vote for president.”

“I’m much more focused on my local and state elections where I can make some more impact,” they said.