The real numbers Democrats should be freaking out about
The real numbers Democrats should be freaking out about
Is pro-Trump content dominant on TikTok?
FWIW, this week’s newsletter is sponsored by Civic Shout
No, I’m not talking about those New York Times poll numbers that Twitter people are arguing about.
Last week, journalist Tara Palmeri at Puck published an eyebrow-raising story about the dominance of pro-Trump content on TikTok. It was an interesting deviation for Palmeri, a POLITICO veteran whose columns usually focus more on political insidery gossip than hard social media platform data. She was able to get pretty alarming data from two unnamed TikTok officials, writing:
“…perhaps surprisingly, the app has become a bastion of MAGA short-form video discourse. Since November, according to two TikTok officials, there’s been twice as much pro-Trump content as pro-Biden content on the platform—specifically, 1.29 million positive Trump videos or images, with 9.1 billion views, compared to 651,000 positive Biden posts, with 6.15 billion views, they told me. According to an internal TikTok analysis, from January 2023 into May 2024, videos tagged #Trump2024 have generated 472.8 million likes and 6.5 billion views, compared with 50.9 million likes and 558 million views for videos tagged #Biden2024. This may not be the most precise survey of the landscape, but that’s still a nearly 10 to 1 ratio of Trump likes to Biden likes, and 12 to 1 in views.”
As Palmeri notes, that methodology is imprecise and an accurate aggregated sentiment analysis is way harder to gauge than just saying all videos using the hashtag #trump2024 are pro-Trump (many aren’t). But the fact that these numbers came from sources at TikTok give them a little more weight, and the report does reinforce a vibe we’ve heard from numerous Democratic strategists and TikTok power users in recent months - that TikTok isn’t exactly a bastion of pro-Biden, pro-Democrat content.
Buried in Palmeri’s story is another interesting data set: there are “10.5 million TikTok users in Pennsylvania, 3.4 million in Nevada*, 2.4 million in Arizona, 5.4 million in Georgia, and 3.7 million users in Michigan.” Political campaigns would be wise to bookmark those numbers.
These stats should be a call to action for the many well-funded progressive organizations that invest in sharing content in the digital space: Stop overemphasizing organic sharing on platforms that do not distribute your content. We can all see that the square quote graphic that you shared on Facebook to your 1 million followers only received 12 likes and 2 comments. Democrats and liberal groups have six months to flood the zone with positive pro-Biden news clips or creative original content reaching core audiences on TikTok. Start now.
The Biden campaign and the White House, for their part, are doing their best. They continue to create loads of content there, whether through their own @BidenHQ account or by engaging with popular creators. For example, just two weeks after my recent report about the “Gen Z Biden Stans” on TikTok, the President met up with pro-Biden Gen Zer Harry Sisson for a quick interview to reach his followers.
I’m hyper focused on providing more insights on what’s moving on TikTok this cycle. In the coming months, FWIW will continue experimenting with new ways to surface political trends on that platform, which often seems like a black box. Make sure you’re subscribed to stay in the know:
Digital ad spending, by the numbers:
FWIW, political advertisers spent just over $9.8 million on Facebook and Instagram ads last week. These were the top ten spenders nationwide:
Last week, we saw a host of new Facebook ad campaigns focused on reproductive rights. Liberal group American Bridge is running a bunch of video testimonial ads hammering Trump on the issue in Pennsylvania and Michigan, and Galvanize USA is doing the same (in a less partisan way) targeting voters in multiple swing states.
Meanwhile, political campaigns spent $3.8 million on Google and YouTube ads last week. Here were the top ten spenders nationwide:
On Google and YouTube, battleground Democratic Senate candidates like Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown, and Bob Casey were top spenders last week. A few messaging themes from some of their latest ads include stopping the fentanyl crisis, lowering drug costs, and supporting veterans.
Meanwhile, the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity Action is boosting GOP U.S. Senate candidates with ads of its own, running a handful of positive spots from Nevada to Pennsylvania.
On Snapchat, political advertisers in the U.S. have spent $1.4 million on ads year to date. Here are the top spenders:
…and on X (formerly Twitter), political advertisers have spent over $2.8 million on the platform in 2024. Here are the top spending accounts:
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Your 2024 digital dispatch
FWIW, here’s how weekly digital ad spending (Facebook/Instagram, Google/YouTube) compares between the Trump and Biden campaigns year-to-date:
More from around the internet:
Does logging off of Facebook make one less likely to vote for Trump? A new study explores that question.
U.S. elections face more threats than ever from foreign actors, enabled by rapid developments in artificial intelligence, DNI Avril Haines told a congressional committee this week.
The Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics has a great new-ish report on the demographics of campaign donors last year.
A sociopath named Valentina Gomez running for Secretary of State in Missouri released a political ad randomly urging viewers to not be “weak and gay.” Unclear how that relates to the office of Secretary of State.
Is Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito a secret MAGA internet troll? Could be - according to the New York Times, he and his reactionary wife flew an American flag upside down to protest the peaceful transfer of power in 2021.
“We saw over 200% ROAS in two months!”
Digital Directors are talking about Civic Shout - the new list-growth platform that’s quietly becoming the industry standard. See for yourself >>
The vibes on TikTok last week:
FWIW, here’s a look at 10 of the most-liked videos mentioning Trump on TikTok in the past week:
Many of the most viral TikToks about Trump often feature young people imitating his voice or doing dumb impressions of him - we generally classify these as having a “neutral” sentiment in the chart above. That was the case this week with a video from @yassinandseanterrio, singing “Black Parade” in a Trump voice. It’s been viewed over 6.7 million times. This video of an @MSNBC host mocking a Trump rally speech performed well, as did this carousel from @couriernewsroom highlighting the bizarre event.
Meanwhile, here were some of the most-liked videos mentioning Biden in the past week:
This video from a troll account with only three posts, @skeeyee026, was the most liked video mentioning Biden last week. It criticizes the President for high inflation. A video from @thedailyshow mocking FOX News for blaming Biden for the Boy Scouts’ rebrand also received lots of attention.
As an overall trend, many videos featured the micro-drama around NFL player Harrison Butker’s super misogynistic, homophobic, and anti-Biden commencement speech last weekend. He’s had a long week.
That’s it for FWIW this week. Apologies in advance for any typos, Lucy is on vacation! This email was sent to 21,097 readers. If you enjoy reading this newsletter each week, would you mind sharing it on Twitter or Threads? Have a tip, idea, or feedback? Reply directly to this email.
*this number - of Nevada Tiktok users from Palmeri’s sources - appears to be incorrect; Nevada only has a population of 3.2 million
"“10.5 million TikTok users in Pennsylvania, 3.4 million in Nevada, 2.4 million in Arizona, 5.4 million in Georgia, and 3.7 million users in Michigan.”
Nevada's 2023 population was 3.1 million, yet 3.4 million users? Smells fishy.