By Ruoxi Grade 9
With the 2024 U.S. Election entering its final sprint, both the Trump and Harris campaigns are doubling down on social media, turning online platforms into the new battleground.
On Sunday, October 6th, Vice president Kamala Harris appeared on the most-listened to podcast by women – “Call Her Daddy”, discussing reproductive rights, family forms, student loans, and other topics surrounding women’s issues. The move emphasised her campaign’s effort to reach the gen-z and millennial generations, especially young women who are politically inactive.
On the other hand, the Republican candidate, former president Donald Trump, recently sat down with a handful of podcasters and influencers, predominantly male, as well as a long list of streams and comedy shows with large audiences of men. It is clear that the Trump campaign is also targeting the younger generations, although mostly male voters.
The social media strategy goes far beyond. In the past few months, the Harris campaign has taken advantage of memes and trends. From “Kamala is Brat” (twitter post by singer Charlie XCX), to the viral “‘You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’” (quote from Harris speech in 2023). Her account – “kamalaharris”, has reached 6 million followers on TikTok, 18.6 million on Instagram and over 21 million on Twitter.
On October 9th, Trump joined comedian Andrew Schulz on the “Flagrant” show. When being asked about the IVF, Trump attacked Harris and described himself as “basically a truthful person”. The clip went viral shortly after the podcast release. Earlier on, Trump made appearances on the Barstool Sports podcast, comedian Theo Von’s show, Adin Ross’s stream and many more.
More surprisingly, the billionaire owner of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter Elon Musk publicly endorsed Trump at his rally in Butler, jumping up and down on stage. Musk donated more than $70 million to Trump’s campaign, who has been struggling to raise funds lately. He is also offering $1 million every day to voters that sign on his petition to help Trump in the race. This has undoubtedly given Trump another advantage in the November election.
In August, the Democratic National Convention (DNC) gave credentials to more than 200 content creators, many who are not given political labels. In contrast, the Republican Convention invited just over 70 influencers. The DNC claims that this year they have hosted “the most content creators ever credentialed for a convention for either major political party.”
Sources:
Kamala Harris Is Using Social Media to Reach Young Voters | TIME
Here Are The Biggest Moments From Trump’s ‘Bro’ Podcast Tour
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