‘Veep’ viewership jumps more than 300 percent after Harris enters race

Vice President Harris’s jump into the 2024 White House race has seemingly generated new interest in “Veep,” with viewership of the show up more than 300 percent this week. 

American viewership of the first season of the HBO political spoof was up 353 percent Monday, compared to the previous day, according to entertainment data company Luminate.

Viewers binged on 2.2 million total minutes of the series on MAX Monday, compared to Sunday when 486,000 total minutes were viewed, Luminate said, citing its streaming viewership data.

Viewership for Season 1 remained steady on Tuesday, with another 2.2 million minutes watched.

A spokesperson for HBO didn’t immediately respond to ITK’s request for comment.

The audience boost for the series — which starred Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a sometimes-bumbling fictional vice president and her unlikely ascent to the Oval Office — coincided with President Biden’s announcement that he was withdrawing his reelection bid. Biden said Sunday that he would no longer run for president and endorsed Harris. 

Harris said last year that she’s a Louis-Dreyfus fan and that “Veep,” which ran from 2012 to 2019, could sometimes be eerily realistic.

“There are bits of it that are actually quite accurate,” Harris told Stephen Colbert of the show.