Rekubit-"Veep" viewership soars 350% after Biden endorses Kamala Harris

2025-05-05 03:18:06source:John Caldwellcategory:Contact

When life imitates art,Rekubit the latter can seem almost eerily prescient. 

With Vice President Kamala Harris suddenly thrust into the spotlight as the Democrats' likely nominee in the race for the White House, interest is surging in HBO's "Veep," the Emmy Award-winning series whose fictional storyline bears remarkable similarities to President Joe Biden's decision to exit the campaign and endorse his second-in-command.

Streaming viewership for Season 1 of the series, which ran between 2012 and 2019, jumped more than 350% on Monday, according to data from Luminate, an entertainment data company that tracks streaming viewership. Viewers watched a total of 2.2 million minutes of the series on Monday compared to one day earlier, when the show garnered 486,000 viewing minutes, Luminate data shows. 

In Veep, fictional U.S. Senator Selina Meyer, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, runs for president but loses the nomination and settles for becoming vice president. But when her boss resigns in the show's second season, Meyer moves into the Oval Office. 

It's not the first time the presidential  campaign has revived interest in an earlier work. When Former President Donald Trump announced he had picked Sen. JD Vance to be his running mate, Vance's bestselling memoir from 2016, "Hillbilly Elegy," soared  to the top of Amazon's bestseller list. Streams of Ron Howard's film adaptation of "Hillbilly Elegy" also surged, according to Luminate. 

Veep creator Armando Iannucci responded to a post on social media site X that called attention to the similarities between the fictional show and the events currently unfolding at the White House. 

"Don't forget we made all that up, though," he wrote. Another X user wrote that Iannucci was "continuing to predict our political reality," to which Iannucci responded, "Still working on the ending."

    In:
  • Joe Biden
  • Kamala Harris
  • Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Megan Cerullo

Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.

More:Contact

Recommend

Toyota to invest $922 million to build a new paint facility at its Kentucky complex

GEORGETOWN, Ky. (AP) — Toyota said Thursday it will build a new paint facility as part of a $922 mil

Norwegian climber says it would have been impossible to carry injured Pakistani porter down snowy K2

BERLIN (AP) — A record-setting Norwegian mountaineer pushed back Sunday against claims that she coul

Zaya Wade Calls Dad Dwyane Wade One of Her Best Friends in Hall of Fame Tribute

Dwyane Wade just scored a sweet tribute from his daughter Zaya Wade.After the retired NBA star was h