‘Veep’ Viewership Soars on Max After Kamala Harris Begins Presidential Campaign

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Max reported a huge jump in viewership for the HBO sitcom Veep, which ran from 2012 to 2019. The surge coincided with Vice President Kamala Harris‘ announcement of her presidential run.

Deadline reported on Tuesday that data from Luminate’s Streaming Viewership revealed a massive 353 percent surge in viewership of Veep on the streaming platform on July 22, the day Harris locked in enough delegates to make her the presumptive Democratic nominee:

Viewership of the HBO series’ first season on Max was up 353% yesterday, July 22, with 2.2 million total minutes watched, following word that Harris had clinched enough pledged delegates to claim the nomination, according to Luminate’s Streaming Viewership data. That’s compared to 486,000 total minutes watched on Sunday, July 21.

The half-hour comedy, led by Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the incompetent Selina Meyer, depicts an ambitious former Senator who became vice president after a failed presidential run of her own. Meyer languishes in her role along with her bumbling staff, but eventually, the president resigns and she becomes president, only to lose her own bid for reelection and become VP again. The parallels are uncanny — and kind of irresistible.

Armando Iannucci, the creator of the Emmy-winning series, assured fans on social media making comparisons between Meyer and Harris that any similarities were purely coincidental:

While President Joe Biden did not resign from the presidency, which the fictional Veep President Stewart Hughes did, he did announce that he wasn’t seeking reelection and gave Harris his endorsement. He called in to her first campaign event on Monday to offer up his support.

The post ‘Veep’ Viewership on Max Skyrockets After Kamala Harris Kicks Off Presidential Run first appeared on Mediaite.

Source: Deadline, Luminate’s Streaming Viewership