A very online presidential debate recap
A very online presidential debate recap
Tuesday’s presidential debate became a defining moment of the campaign – online and off
A lot of ink has already been spilled by pundits and journalists writing about Tuesday night’s presidential debate. According to Nielsen, over 67 million people watched at least some of the debate on television, a number that reportedly excludes the tens of millions who watched via news streaming apps.
Those numbers are impressive already, and millions more have seen at least some content from the debate online and in their social media feeds.
According to our partners at CAP Action, who track organic engagement and views across social media platforms, the debate was the single-largest moment for the Harris campaign so far in 2024. The 24 hours after the debate generated over 760 million views on Harris-related content (excluding Twitter). That is nearly triple their previous high point of 274 million at the start of the Harris campaign launch:
People viewing debate-related content online this week were likely to have seen one of three things:
Cats and dogs…
Days before the debate, right-wing internet weirdos began circulating a debunked lie that migrants in Springfield, Ohio are eating people’s pets. It became a whole thing on MAGA Twitter leading up to Tuesday night, being elevated by the likes of JD Vance, Ted Cruz, and Elon Musk. This very online bit of weird nonsense clearly reached former President Trump, because he was eager to share the made-up story as a line of attack on immigrants during the debate (and was immediately fact-checked on it). At least one prominent GOP strategist, Erick Erickson, was not happy about it:
Since then, Trump has been relentlessly mocked online, with memers on Instagram and creators on TikTok posting pet reaction videos and remixes of his comments.
In particular, an audio remix has been moving far and wide the past few days. Here’s a version featuring Harris dancing, and several featuring original choreography.
The cats and dogs thing only matters because it underscores a few things about Trump’s candidacy:
1. He’s regularly talking about things that people have never heard of and don’t understand.
2. He’s falling into the Democrats’ trap of being seen as “weird” and (in a post-Biden campaign) increasingly old and senile.
3. It shows that his 2024 campaign has fallen victim to a very insular and arrogant right-wing online ecosystem that doesn’t really know how to communicate to real people.
Harris’ shining moment
On a more serious note, Harris left the night with one key exchange that her campaign staffers only could have dreamed of. When asked about the issue of abortion rights, Trump openly bragged about gutting Roe v. Wade, teeing up Harris to perfectly execute a long, emotional answer about the pain women have suffered as a result.
Numerous bits of internal testing we’ve seen from liberal groups this week have shown it to be one of the most persuasive and effective clips from the entire night, so it is no coincidence that the Harris team is distributing the moment far and wide with a new ad campaign:
This exchange on abortion - and Harris’ expert ability to speak to the issue - is such a welcome contrast from the last debate with President Biden atop the ticket. Biden long has had difficulty even saying the word ‘abortion,’ and after the previous debate in June, the Associated Press even ran a headline that read: “Faced with the opportunity to hit Trump on abortion rights, Biden falters.”
The Swift endorsement
Perhaps the biggest debate moment came after the stage lights were turned off and the flacks (and Trump) entered the Spin Room. Around 11pm ET, global superstar Taylor Swift published an Instagram post endorsing Kamala Harris.
If you haven’t seen the video, Tim Walz was live on Maddow when the news broke, and his reaction is pretty endearing. Swift reaches potential segments of the electorate that both campaigns are eager to reach - women, young people, and, most importantly, people who don’t pay attention to politics very much. As a result, her post, which has over 10 million likes on Instagram, drove over 400,000 visitors to vote.gov, an online portal for voter registration.
The ripple effects
In the 24 hours following the debate, the Harris campaign raked in over $47 million in donations. We noticed on Tuesday that within an hour of the debate ending, they were immediately running fundraising ads on sites like Facebook, capitalizing on her best moments.
The Trump campaign and its allies, on the other hand, have been stewing about the debate all week. Crazy people on Twitter spread a conspiracy theory that Harris was secretly wearing headphones in her earrings, and nearly every GOP staffer on Twitter was accusing the debate moderators of bias. The debate was perceived to be so bad for Trump, that his team has already bailed on the next one.
All that is to say, enjoy the presidential debate memes and viral content while you can - they may be the only ones we get for another four years.
Digital ad spending, by the numbers:
FWIW, political advertisers spent just over $19.7 million on Facebook and Instagram ads last week. These were the top ten spenders nationwide:
One for All Committee, which focuses on engaging moderate women voters, spent over $223,000 on video ads last week about abortion and in support of VP Kamala Harris (and also Sen. Jon Tester who is in a very tight race in Montana). The ads seem to be targeted at key states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and, of course, Montana.
Over on the right, Duty to America PAC, a pro-Trump group, is running anti-Harris video ads targeted specifically at the key swing state of Pennsylvania, and Right for America PAC is running a very similar pro-Trump ad play in North Carolina. Looking at digital spending targeting voters in swing states, these various right wing groups supporting Trump are notably starting to expand their spending, reach, and influence.
Meanwhile, political campaigns spent $20.8 million on Google and YouTube ads last week. Here were the top ten spenders nationwide:
Fix Washington PAC, a GOP group largely funded by Republican Senate candidate Eric Hovde’s brother, is running video ads attacking Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s partner, Maria Brisbane, who is a financial advisor (and not a public or political figure).
On X (formerly Twitter), political advertisers in the U.S. have spent $10 million on ads year to date. Here are the top spenders:
The right-wing American Principles Project (@APProject) is out with a huge new X/Twitter ad spend: the group’s ads promote its new documentary blaming Biden and Harris for the difficult Afghanistan withdrawal.
Presidential head-to-head
FWIW, here’s how weekly digital ad spending (Facebook/Instagram, Google/YouTube) compares between the Trump and Harris (formerly Biden) campaigns year-to-date:
What else is happening on TikTok?
This week on TikTok, the vibes were crystal clear: Kamala Harris ate on the debate stage and left absolutely no crumbs. Viral debate posts from news accounts like @msnbc, @dailymail, and @cnn of Harris attacking Trump on topics across the political spectrum were seen by tens of millions of people. Check out our full analysis in this week’s FYP 👇
More from around the internet:
Did the Harris campaign troll the Trump campaign with drones right before the debate??? (We’re obsessed btw.)
Donald Trump Jr. was reacting to the debate on X/Twitter with AI-generated images, like this one of his father riding a cat with an assault weapon…
The Atlantic published a piece claiming that the era of the emoji is waning 😲
Far-right online activist Laura Loomer has been in some sort of massive drama with MAGA people all week. It’s quite frankly been hard to keep up with, and even harder to care.
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