Influencers (and their neon lights) overshadow traditional media in the US elections.

The United States presidential elections are just around the corner and will be held overseas in just a couple of weeks. At such a decisive moment, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris is betting heavily on social networks, where (conveniently in cahoots with prominent influencers) she has ended up becoming absolutely omnipresent, while her opponent Donald Trump relies above all and above all on classic events. of an in-person nature, although in recent weeks he has also begun to pay attention to celebrities born in the heat of the Internet.

Last week, a video emerged on Kamala Harris’ TikTok channel that showed the Democratic candidate for the White House campaigning tirelessly throughout the United States. with the ultimate goal of gaining the favor of those who have not yet decided on their vote ahead of the polls on November 5 (and who are the ones who will probably decide the results in these elections). The clip, barely 30 seconds long, was accompanied by Lady Gaga’s voice-over describing her intense musical tours (as exhausting as the campaign Kamala Harris is now embarking on).

The target audience of that video and of the entire channel in general are voters assigned to Generation Z, many of whom will debut at the polls on November 5 and who mainly obtain information through TikTok and social networks.

Even though Kamala Harris is 59 years old and there is an obvious generation gap between her and Generation Z, The current vice president of the United States is connecting exceptionally well with centennials, whom she dazzles with her irony and sense of humor. “Harris is running what is probably the most modern election campaign of all time,” Kenneth Pennington, Democratic Party digital strategist, recently said.

Kamala Harris has ended up becoming omnipresent on social networks

Days before the video with Lady Gaga’s voice-over was released on her TikTok channel, Harris had made four major public appearances. First of all, The Democratic Party candidate was interviewed by influencer Alex Cooper on her famous podcast «Call Her Daddy»which on a thematic level mainly revolves around sex and relationships. Harris then agreed to chat with the popular radio host Howards Sternwhich with its crude sense of humor attracts, above all, a very young audience. Later, the Democratic candidate visited the set of Stephen Colbert’s “late night,” with whom she shared a beer in front of the cameras, and then underwent a long in-depth interview on the CBS program “60 Minutes.”

Harris appears to have been anointed with the gift of ubiquity over the course of the last few days. The Democrat knows that there are very few days left until the decisive appointment with the polls on November 5 and that she is not as well known to the general public as her rival. Until last July, Harris took over from Joe Biden in the race for the White House, the Democratic candidate had been virtually invisible and her public projection had been practically nil.

Harris is more than aware that her popularity is not optimal ahead of the next presidential elections in the United States and for this reason she is being so ambitious in her electoral campaign. During the week of the presidential debate with Donald Trump, Harris invested, for example, $12.2 million in Facebook and Instagram alone, approximately 20 times more than the Republican candidate.

Similarly, Harris has spent up to $69.7 million on Google advertising, while Trump has spent much less: $18.7 million.

The fact that Harris is investing significantly more resources than Trump in her campaign ahead of the next elections could be influenced by the fact that the Democratic candidate simply has more money at her disposal than her opponent at the polls. At the end of August, the campaign for Kamala had raised $234 million, far from the $135 million raised by Trump and his acolytes.

Trump, whose campaign is being hampered by the high costs that the candidate has had to face in recent years in the different trials he has faced in court, is in any case far behind his rival in terms of presence in the media, especially on digital channels, where the Republican candidate definitely has the upper hand. The Republican defends himself by arguing that his followers prefer to interact face to face with him at his electoral rallies.so popular that they invariably make multiple headlines in the media. That is enough for him to be constantly in the limelight, says the former president of the United States.

Even so, and despite the arrogance that characterizes him, Trump is not entirely absent on social networkss, which have changed radically since he was elevated to the White House eight years ago. He does, however, deliberately avoid television formats such as “60 Minutes” and has also refused to star in a second televised debate with his opponent Kamala Harris.

Are influencers overshadowing traditional media in American politics?

The upcoming presidential elections in the United States highlight that influencers have burst into politics (and there seems to be no turning back). Not in vain were 200 influencers invited to the Democratic Party Convention, while some journalists remained, on the contrary, composed and uninvited. American politics seems to have understood that in social networks everything today revolves around “algorithm recommendations and viral content,” emphasizes Tim Caulkins, professor of marketing at Northwestern University.

In recent weeks, Trump has reached out to a vast myriad of online personalities in hopes of connecting with voters he can’t reach through traditional media.. The candidate has given interviews to the podcaster Theo Von, whose target is mainly young men living in rural areas, to the boxer and YouTuber Logan Paul, and also to Lex Fridman, who is in charge of a podcast with the focus on technology and is a man very close to Elon Musk.

By submitting to the questions (not too incisive) of these influencers, Trump aspires to connect with those voters who do not consume traditional media. And her rival Kamala Harris is also doing something similar with Alex Cooper and Howard Stern.

In any case, it is perhaps too early to talk about a paradigm shift in the way politicians connect with their voters. Most of the budgets allocated to electoral campaigns continue to go to the other side of the pond on television and radio. And Kamala Harris at least continues to speak regularly to mainstream media journalists. But the share of political advertising gobbled up by social media has risen from 14.1% to 28.1% over the course of the past four years. And the role of non-traditional media and influencers is increasingly conspicuous in electoral campaigns.

The traditional media are aware that they do not have as prominent a role as they once had in electoral processes and are making their displeasure heard. Harris has been, without going any further, harshly criticized by many journalists for granting an interview to Alex Cooper, a podcaster who has made her name above all by giving sex advice to young women. Rumors say that Harris, like Trump, would be deliberately avoiding critical questions from the most active journalists in the political arena to get her message across to her potential voters without any type of filter.

At the other end of the ring, political professionals argue, for their part, that the old breed of political journalism should have adapted better (and more quickly) to the current times.. “The job of a presidential candidate is not to please the traditional media, but to inspire enthusiasm in voters,” emphasizes Jen Psaki, Barack Obama’s former press secretary.