Walz plays Madden NFL video game live on Twitch with AOC

A match between the Minnesota Vikings and Buffalo Bills abruptly ended at halftime Sunday with neither team scoring a point.

At least that’s what happened on the newest Madden NFL video game as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York faced off live on the streaming platform Twitch.

Walz got the first drive after joining the livestream wearing a camo Vikings hat under AirPods Max headphones. The vice presidential candidate said he used to play the game years ago with his son, Gus.

“I don’t know how to punt. The last time I punted was on like Madden 98,” Walz said as he relearned the controls.

The match was held as Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ campaign aims to win points with young men, a demographic the party has focused on making inroads with in recent weeks.

It’s not the first time the campaign has streamed on Twitch in an effort to gain votes with the platform’s young and predominantly male users. It streamed a Walz rally earlier in October alongside a live World of Warcraft game.

A Minnesota poll released in September, by the Minnesota Star Tribune, MPR News and KARE 11, found Harris had a 48% to 43% lead over the Republican Donald Trump. But a gender gap persisted, with men preferring the former president. A recent NBC News poll showed Harris had a lead of 2 percentage points over Trump among young men.

On Friday, Trump appeared on a three-hour episode of the “Joe Rogan Experience,” a top-charting podcast with millions of viewers, the majority of whom are men.

During Sunday’s Twitch stream, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez played Madden while discussing making homebuying more accessible, building affordable housing, eliminating student loan debt and raising the federal minimum wage.

After the match, Walz showed off his Sega skills in a round of “Crazy Taxi,” the Y2K-era racing game where gamers play as a taxi driver picking up passengers and taking them to their destination for cash.

Walz called himself a “first-generation gamer” and recalled playing “Crazy Taxi” when he bought a Sega Dreamcast. He also mentioned the Minnesota Star Tribune’s coverage of how his old game console was sold and ended up with a Plymouth resident, who still has it.

Afterward, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez watched a short clip of Trump denying on Rogan’s podcast that he lost the 2020 presidential election. Democrat Joe Biden won that year.

Ocasio-Cortez during the livestream also showed viewers her farm on the cozy, indie game Stardew Valley. Walz said the game reminded him of Minnesota: “You’ve got mining,” he said. “You’ve got agriculture. You’ve got snow.”

Before Walz headed out to a rally in Nevada, he pleaded with viewers to vote. More than 12,000 viewers tuned into the livestream on Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitch channel. More watched from Harris’ channel.

“If you can learn to punt on Madden, you can vote,” he said.