How TikTok Could Decide the 2024 Election

The most divisive, yet highly popular social media platform is shaping up to become one of the biggest factors in this year's presidential election.

Despite widespread criticisms about TikTok from both sides of the aisle, the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees are signaling that the Chinese-owned app will be critical to reaching voters, especially young ones, ahead of November.

President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump have both called for a ban on TikTok, yet both men now have accounts on the fastest-growing social platform in America. On Saturday night, Trump—who once tried to ban TikTok in the U.S. with an executive order—launched his personal account with a 13-second video in which UFC President Dana White declared, "The president is now on TikTok."

In less than 24 hours, the former president amassed over 2 million followers on the app. As of Tuesday morning, he has 5 million followers. His sole post on the platform has been viewed over 78 million times.

"For better or worse, 2024 will be the TikTok election," James Haggerty, president and CEO of strategic communications firm PRCG, told Newsweek. "It may be banned in 2025, but for the 2024 election TikTok ain't going nowhere."

Trump isn't the only presidential candidate to reverse his position on TikTok. After months of steering clear of the controversial app over privacy and national security concerns related to TikTok's Chinese ownership, the Biden campaign gave in and joined the platform, posting its first TikTok with the caption "lol hey guys" during this year's Super Bowl.

Even after Biden signed a law in April that would ban TikTok nationwide if its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, doesn't sell it by January 2025, his reelection campaign said it plans to keep using the app until Election Day.

"A fragmented media environment requires us to show up and meet voters where they are—and that includes online," the Biden campaign said in a statement. "TikTok is one of many places we're making sure our content is being seen by voters."

When approached by Newsweek, the Biden campaign said it has "a robust operation to reach young voters and move them to the polls" and has "built a deep bench of trusted messengers across social media platforms which dates back to 2020...and is continuing to grow now."

The Trump campaign also defended the presumptive GOP nominee after he joined TikTok over the weekend, saying in a statement: "We will leave no front undefended and this represents the continued outreach to a younger audience consuming pro-Trump and anti-Biden content."

Newsweek reached out to the Trump and Biden campaigns for additional comment.

Political consultant Jay Townsend told Newsweek that while both candidates have criticized TikTok and its ownership, it's clear both campaigns have come to the conclusion that the app is critical to reaching young voters.

"Both candidates feel compelled to speak to younger voters, which means that both camps are nervous about the younger demographic that has come of age the last eight years," Townsend said. "As a group, they are far more independent than their elders, more likely to be unaffiliated with either party, disengaged, and up for grabs. In politics you have to meet your voters where they are."

As of March 21, TikTok boasts 150 million active users in the U.S. But there's also a glaring generational gap in its user base. A Pew Research Center survey released in January found that 62 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds use TikTok, compared to only 10 percent of those 65 years and older. Facebook has an estimated 243 million U.S. accounts.

In 2024, Gen Z youth alone will make up over 40 million potential voters and nearly one fifth of the American electorate, according to a survey by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). The poll conducted between October 25 and November 2, found that 57 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds say they're "extremely likely" to vote in this year's presidential election, but that only 19 percent have heard from political parties or campaigns.

The CIRCLE survey showed that 51 percent of youth voters were extremely likely to back the Democratic candidate and that only 30 percent were extremely likely to back the Republican candidate, but recent polls show that Trump may be making gains among young people.

The Spring 2024 Harvard Youth Poll released in April found Biden leading Trump by a much narrower eight points, 45 percent to 37 percent, among voters under 30. Biden's lead is much larger among young women, 33 points compared to only 6 points among young men. The Democrat also does better among nonwhite voters under 30, leading 43 points among the demographic but only 3 points among white voters in the same age group.

"The Trump and Biden campaigns are both trying to figure out how to use TikTok effectively to peel off just enough of those younger voters who will be critical to putting them over the top," Haggerty said. "Not that easy to do considering their candidates were both born before even television was common in U.S. homes."

TikTok is also a popular platform for two other major voting demographics in this year's election. Nearly half of Hispanic adults report using TikTok, compared to 39 percent of Black adults, 29 percent of Asian adults and 28 percent of white adults. Women also use the platform at much higher rates than men, 40 percent to 25 percent.

Latinos are the second-fastest growing racial and ethnic group in the U.S. electorate since the last presidential election, up 3.9 million since 2020, while rollbacks on reproductive rights, and subsequent referendums on abortion, have highlighted the importance of female voters.

"There is a new kid on the block that was not around four years ago," Townsend said of TikTok.

But while TikTok is poised to play a bigger role this year than in past elections, its rise may suggest something else. Dave Karpf, an associate professor at George Washington University specializing in digital media and politics, told Newsweek the popularity of TikTok "mostly signals the continual decline of the other platforms."

"TikTok is filling the social media hole left by ex-Twitter," Karpf said, adding that there are bigger factors that shake up the presidential race.

"I do not expect that either campaign's use of TikTok will have much impact on the eventual election outcome," he predicted. "Donald Trump's sentencing will be just four days before this year's Republican National Convention. That's unprecedented. The sheer fact of his conviction on 34 felony counts is going to be more impactful than any video clips his campaign decides to post to social media."

Update 06/04/24, 11:17 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with comment from the Biden campaign.

Correction 06/05/24, 09:10 a.m. ET: The Latino figure in this story has been corrected.