By Mickey Carroll, science and technology reporter
Vice presidential nominee Tim Walz and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went head-to-head yesterday to play video games live on streaming platform Twitch.
Mr Walz told around 12,000 viewers he was a “first-generation gamer”, ahead of taking on the New York congresswoman in a game of Madden, an American football video game.
“I was of the age when Pong was coming online,” he said, adding that when he used to play Madden, it was “with the little square guys that were all pixelated, not like the Madden you’re about to whip my butt on”.
Ms Acasio-Cortez, better known as AOC, has nearly a million followers on the Twitch streaming platform that is mostly used by gamers.
Mr Walz’ appearance came as a recent NBC News survey found the Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris had a two percentage point lead over Donald Trump with young male registered voters.
“We don’t all share the same politics, we don’t all share the same views, but the need to defeat Trump this year has been my number one priority,” said AOC.
The pair shared experiences of relying on social security credits when their fathers died in their teenage years.
“For families like ours, it was the difference between potentially losing your home [and not],” said Mr Walz, who explained he was “a little bit miffed Donald Trump’s proposals will bust social security”.
Donald Trump says he will “fight for and protect social security” but analysis of his fiscal plans suggest they “would dramatically worsen social security’s finances”, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
After their Madden showdown, in which neither politician managed to score a point, the vice presidential nominee grinned and asked if he could “do something” before heading off to a campaign rally in Nevada.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it… it’s a game called Crazy Taxi,” he said before revealing there’s even a character based on him in the game.
He then treated AOC’s viewers to a hectic few minutes of the game that was first released in 1999.
“Dude, you’re good!” exclaimed AOC.
Sunday’s session came after one of Mr Walz’s rallies was live-streamed on Twitch alongside a stream of the World of Warcraft game by the Harris campaign.