A Post-Election Analysis of Campaign Strategies to Gen Z: Success or Failure?

Image via The 19th News

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This past election will be analyzed and discussed for a multitude of reasons. From the late entrance of Vice President Kamala Harris to the controversy of President-elect Donald Trump’s criminal charges, this race is one that charted unknown territory. 

One of the many aspects of this election handled uniquely by both candidates was their campaigning strategies. On the surface level, both Trump and Harris attempted to secure last-minute votes during the tight race. They hosted rallies and speeches across various swing states, including Pennsylvania and North Carolina. However, a new trend of campaigning developed throughout the last few months of the race, characterized by attempts to appeal to arguably one of the most important demographics in the election: Gen Z. This election year, 41 million members of Gen Z were able to vote, with 8 million of those being new voters. In turn, there was a clear shift from both candidates in campaigning strategies to their support. Were these new campaigning strategies effective in securing Gen Z votes? Did Kamala’s campaign contribute to her loss? And did Trump’s campaign contribute to his win?

Kamala Harris took a more overt approach to appealing to potential Gen Z voters, specifically through her social media accounts. The Vice President’s TikTok account, “Kamala HQ,” is filled with popular references to Gen Z memes and culture. Harris’s use of songs from artists such as CharliXCX and Chappell Roan was one of the main ways she tried to appeal to young voters. But while these videos were funny, they didn’t seem to secure the number of Gen Z votes she needed to win. Although young voters favored Harris by four points, 51% to 47%, this was ultimately a much smaller margin than young voters gave President Biden in 2020. Additionally, as her campaign progressed, it became apparent that she did not run her own TikTok account—it was a calculated social media marketing strategy run by several of her younger interns or staff members. The videos themselves did not contain any outlines of her policy or plans she would have carried as president; instead, they delved into the “brain rot” content overtaking Gen Z social media. 

Additionally, Harris had famous music artists and celebrities endorse her campaign. In July of this year, Harris had popular rapper Megan Thee Stallion perform at her rally in Atlanta, along with Quavo appearing as a guest speaker at the same rally. These figures are relevant to younger voters, and having them perform was a clear, decisive move to appeal to them. 

More recently and shockingly, Harris appeared on the popular podcast “Call Her Daddy” hosted by Alex Cooper, which usually tackles more provocative and risque topics revolving around sex, relationships, etc. With the podcast harboring five million listeners (mainly Gen Z), it’s clear that this shift away from traditional news outlets was an attempt to connect with the younger generation. Inevitably, Harris received backlash for her appearance on the podcast due to her tendency to avoid interviews from mainstream news outlets and appearing so out of left field for the show’s tone and subject matter. Some viewers didn’t think the message met certain expectations, while others vocalized to Alex Cooper that her podcast should stay apolitical and that having Harris on the podcast was too off-brand. 

Harris’s inability to convey her policy and differentiate herself from President Biden were pitfalls of her campaign. In general, the attitude she put forward when questioned about her potential policies was simply that they were “not what Trump is doing,” which becomes extremely unhelpful to voters when deciding who their vote goes to. When questioned whether or not she would’ve done anything differently these past four years under the Biden administration, she couldn’t think of anything she would have done differently aside from having a Republican in her Cabinet. This did not help her case, as Biden’s approval ratings have steadily decreased throughout his presidency. 

However, it is essential to note that Harris was not the only candidate attempting to relate to Gen Z; former president Donald Trump made apparent attempts to secure votes too. For the past two months, the Trump campaign has also been using social media like TikTok to reach out to young voters, but it has been relatively unsuccessful compared to Harris (in terms of strictly TikTok). 

According to a social media analytics company Zelf, at least 15,300 anti-Trump videos have appeared on TikTok in the past two months; the clips received 2.6 billion views in total. Comparedly, 12,500 TikToks criticized Harris; these got one billion views. However, this was clearly not reflective of the votes of Gen Z—especially men. 

Young men during this election preferred Trump by a 14-point margin: 56% to 42%. Like Kamala Harris, Donald Trump recently appeared on a popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. However, the podcasts are very different in nature, with the Joe Rogan podcast appealing to young male viewers with a political breakdown of 35% of listeners identifying as Independent or “something else” while 32% align with Republicans and 27% align with Democrats. In the recent three-hour episode, Trump reached potential viewers with long-form content in which he delivered over 30 false claims. Despite this, 54% of weekly Joe Rogan listeners lean toward Trump, while only 26% favor Harris.

During the last week of October, according to a Harvard Youth poll, young Americans strongly favored Kamala Harris, with the survey finding that Harris led Donald Trump by 28 points (from likely voters under the age of 30). However, these polls clearly did not reflect the election results. 

The outcome of this election can be attributed to a lot of different things, and also provides commentary on a lot of ongoing issues in America such as gender roles, misogyny, income inequality, foreign policy, and more. Still, it’s important to see how the strategies taken by each candidate campaign-wise contributed to their result. 

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This article was edited by Graham Thoresen and Kate Stover.