Written by Victor Destang
Can a TikTok dance video, a Twitter meme, or an Instagram post push people to vote for one candidate over another? After travelling to the US over Reading Week to cover the Election in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Washington D.C., speaking to youth from all walks of life, my answer is: not exactly.
An impressive 92% of the people interviewed immediately said social media played a huge role. But how? The simple answer would be to examine what people do on social media: share and receive information. Indeed, 78.5% of the respondents said that their primary source of political information was platforms like Twitter or TikTok.
Consequently, the intuitive conclusion might be that candidate exposure pushed voters toward a specific choice. However, I argue that this is unlikely. 71% of the people admitted they primarily consumed content that matched their pre-existing beliefs—some even described social media as a new family. This phenomenon can be attributed to two well-known factors: the psychological bias of cognitive dissonance, where individuals reject information that contradicts their beliefs, and the engagement-based algorithms which pushes people towards echo-chambers.
Hence, if voters are confined in their informational bubbles, the more content they consume, the less exposure they have to opposing perspectives. That being so, it is difficult to argue simply that social media exposure or campaigns genuinely changed voting patterns. In most cases, it seems candidates are merely preaching to their believers.
Yet a shift in voting patterns remains evident: despite Kamala Harris’ effort to appeal to young voters through (mostly) female celebrities or viral internet trends, Donald Trump managed to gain ~8% of womens’ votes compared to 2020. For younger voters, the trend was similar. Harris lost ≈11 points among the 18–24 demographic compared to Joe Biden’s performance in 2020 and her only gains were limited to voters aged 65 and older—a group not very present on social media.
Explaining the Youth Shift
If social media presence cannot explain this decline, then what does? Perhaps it was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an issue raised by almost 30% of those I interviewed.
Harris’ ambiguous position faced harsh criticism on social media from her traditionally young voting base. As they used social media to bypass what they described as censored partisan TV, many tried to pressure her to take a stronger stance toward the Israeli government. While some voters questioned their support, others voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate who publicly called to end the genocide in Gaza. Thus, controversial foreign policy positions amplified on social media might have partly explained the Democrat’s decline.
Nonetheless, if we look at the results, however, this dynamic had minimal impact on the election outcome. Stein garnered approximately 769,000 votes—0.5% of the total share. Even in the unlikely event that all Stein voters had supported Harris, it wouldn’t have secured her a single additional swing state. Even if voter abstention due to the foreign policy issue could partly explain the decline, its impact was also minimal: Harris received millions fewer votes than Biden in 2020, but the youth vote only dropped by 1% as a share of the total vote.
Conclusively, the youth decidedly voted for Trump, but it couldn’t have been about foreign policy. Even with peace promises, Trump’s long-standing support for the Israeli government and disputed policies make it improbable that social media coverage of Middle Eastern issues fully swayed young voters to him.
Divide in Social Media Strategy
So what caused the shift? Perhaps the answer lies not in the candidates’ outstanding social media exposure, but in how they strategically used it.
If we look at the numbers, Trump’s and Harris’ official TikTok accounts had close levels of engagement—105,000,000 likes for Trump and 145,000,000 for Harris, with comparable like-to-view ratios of approximately 1:10. Yet Trump had 1.5 times more followers than Harris, which suggests that he retained his audience more effectively. But how?
We can find that answer when analysing their content. Harris’s campaign strategy emphasised three types: opposition to Trump – often using slogans like never again -, celebrity endorsements, and videos showcasing her rallies across the country. In contrast, Trump’s content is not in opposition to Kamala. His videos are focused on himself, his campaign promises, and some celebrity endorsements. They were typically short (15 seconds), dynamically edited, and centred on catchphrases tied to what he announced – “Remove tax out of tips”, “Make America safer”, “End wars” to name a few. Meanwhile, Harris’ program-focused videos were longer (1.30+ minutes) and less dynamic, often campaign excerpts, which struggled to resonate with Tiktok users. In fact, Harris’ ‘brat’ campaign content may have even backfired on her voter base. The more popstar multi-billionaires aligned with her, the more she seemed disconnected from everyday voters, which could play into Donald Trump’s ‘Deep State’ narrative – of elites working within or parallel of the government to undermine America’s interests and Trump’s presidential efforts – and only it could bend so many elites’ wills in endorsement against Trump.
Trump’s superior reel performance extended to long-form content as well. On YouTube, Harris’ most-watched interview – a 26-minute exchange with Fox News – reached 6.5 million views and 139,000 likes—a like-to-view ratio of 1:43. By comparison, Trump’s most-watched interview, an impressive three-hour conversation with Joe Rogan, amassed 51 million views and 2.2 million likes—a near doubled ratio of 1:23. Notably, Kamala Harris refused to appear on the program without conditions, a missed opportunity as Joe Rogan later endorsed Donald Trump, strengthening his image as a more open-minded and convincing individual than Harris.
Kamala’s social media campaign failed to create a meaningful dynamic and likely further demotivated uncertain democrats-leaning voters while increasing Trump’s attractiveness. The combination of the short videos to attract attention and longer ones to convince seems to have proven right for Trump. His sheer engagement, even for a lengthy format, demonstrates the effectiveness of his social media strategy in emphasising his program and willingness to talk about it.
Final Thoughts: How It All Played Out
Considering the evidence now, the popular assumption that voters can be swayed on social media by a candidate’s cool factor, celebrity endorsements, or polarizing foreign policy position appears unfounded. Instead, the decisive factor on social media wasn’t only social media presence; rather, it was the nature of its content which attracted voters.
On TikTok, Harris’ trend-focused videos, celebrity endorsements, and campaign extracts about her liberal social positions achieved similar statistics then her opponent. Yet they failed to persuade undecided voters and likely reinforced the perception that she was disconnected from day-to-day concerns.
Additionally, her strongly emphasised opposition to Trump combined with her lack of meaningful engagement with her program in longer formats may have further hindered her credibility.
In contrast, the former president’s all encompassing political campaign and reflected strategy appeared to understand, relate to, and address voters’ concerns about economy, security, and freedom from government overreach—issues he strikingly raised in short content and later developed in longer videos.
While Trump may have had unfair advantages, particularly via Elon Musk’s unclear role in driving pro-Trump narrative through X (formerly Twitter), it also remains clear that the nature of Trump’s social media content was what pushed the needle in his favour—a lesson that the Democrats can take to heart in 2028.
