Kamala, Trump, and TikTok: The Impact of the “Chronically Online” on the Election

“Kamala IS brat,” a tweet from popstar Charli XCX reads, which amassed over 55.7 million views. The culture of 2024 has been determined by those self-labeled as “chronically online,” social media users “whose lives have obsessively revolved around the social connection found in cyber-space,” remarks Vice Magazine’s Julie Fenwick. These users are typically part of Generation Z, whose constituents spend hours on TikTok daily. However, their reach has even extended to the upcoming presidential election. Both Kamala Harris’s and Donald Trump’s campaigns have taken advantage of social media to shape public opinion and influence voter behavior in the digital age, shifting how candidates seek to gain votes. 

Visual media has impacted the elections since the first televised debate of Kennedy and Nixon. The social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has explicitly impacted elections through the choice of information spread, according to a 2023 study from Princeton on the impact of social media and elections. The study found that in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, X negatively influenced the Republican Party’s total number of votes. They also found that the effects of social media were mainly concentrated in the pool of moderate voters, impacting how they voted more than any other group. 

Social media can have a heavy impact on voters, as demonstrated by Wael Jabr from the Penn State Smeal College of Business, whose “repeated exposure effect” shows that when we are repeatedly exposed to an idea, we are more likely to adopt it and reshare it. This happens every day on social media, making the commodity of voters’ attention more valuable for candidates. 

Most importantly, the social media platform TikTok has the power to specifically influence young voters. According to a 2024 study, “about 70% of TikTok’s users are between 18 and 35 years old.” Just like X users, the majority of TikTok users have the potential to be influenced into voting one way or another. Taking advantage of TikTok’s concentrated demographic of young voters is a great tactic, but campaigns must be conscious about how they use the app. 

Harris’s social media team, under the name “KamalaHQ,” has appealed to young voters by participating in current TikTok trends as they cycle the internet weekly. They commonly post videos with up to 54 million views using music and references familiar to young TikTok users. Under an account named “realdonaldtrump,” Trump’s team has posted videos with up to 177 million views. However, the videos are clips of Trump’s speeches and policy views rather than general trend-following videos common to KamalaHQ. The most notable difference between the way both candidates use TikTok is Harris’s apparent attempts to appeal to young voters, rather than to distinguish herself as a policy-focused candidate. On the other hand, Trump uses TikTok to signal to voters that he is firm in his policies and stances instead of catering to a younger audience.

Another impact social media has on the election is celebrity endorsements. Charli XCX’s tweet supporting Kamala by relating her to her popular album, “brat,” brought more attention to the election for young voters. Taylor Swift, with over 32 million followers on TikTok, and Bryce Hall, a full-time content creator with over 23.8 million, both recently endorsed presidential candidates–Swift for Harris and Hall for Trump. Both have a large young following, and public endorsement could influence their supporters to vote for the same candidate. 

One concern over the impact of the internet on the election is that anyone can influence thousands of people in an election. On TikTok, one person’s conspiracy theory can garner attention and influence the votes of naive young viewers stuck in their internet echo chambers—even if it promotes misinformation. 

Going forward, the hours of time spent on TikTok by the average young voter could influence the outcome of elections, and the candidate that gains the youth vote has a stronger chance of winning. In this election, the candidates’ use of TikTok could impact their overall performance—but we won’t know for sure until November. 

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This article was edited by Renee Agostini and Max Cowan.

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