Here at Hootsuite, we’re experts on social media trends and conversations. And right now, one of the most prevalent conversations in every corner of the internet (and at almost every dinner table) is the upcoming 2024 US presidential election.
Today, we’re pulling back the curtain. With the help of Hootsuite Listening powered by Talkwalker, we’re taking a close look at how the two candidates, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, are performing on social media — and what businesses can learn from their campaigns.
Key terms
- In social listening, sentiment is the measurement of how many explicitly positive or negative keywords appear along a specific search term. The search terms we used for this analysis were Kamala Harris, Vice President Harris, Kamala, Donald Trump, President Trump, and Trump.
- Net sentiment is the difference between positive and negative sentiment. For example, if 50% of posts on a topic are positive and 75% are negative, the net sentiment is -25%. A negative net sentiment score indicates that negative sentiment outweighs positive sentiment.
- Results refers to the number of individual social media posts that mention a specific keyword. It is not a measure of how many times a keyword was used (e.g., a post that mentions “Harris” 5 times is still equal to 1 result).
How key campaign moments shaped public sentiment
Sentiment has shifted throughout the presidential race (although, in the social media sphere, neither candidate managed to break into net positive sentiment). Posts have gone viral, meme-able moments have occurred (again and again), and the word “unprecedented” has become a key part of the current cultural discourse.
Below is a look at each candidate’s net sentiment throughout 2024. The changes in sentiment reflect each campaign’s pivotal moments:
- July 13: Attempted assassination of Donald Trump
- July 15-18: 2024 Republican National Convention
- July 21: Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race
- August 2: The announcement of Kamala Harris as the new Democratic nominee
- August 6: The announcement of Tim Walz as Harris’ running mate
- August 12: Trump joins Elon Musk for a virtual chat hosted on X (formerly Twitter)
- August 19-22: 2024 Democratic National Convention
- September 10: The first presidential debate between Harris and Trump hosted by ABC News
- October 1: The vice presidential debate between Walz and Vance hosted by CBS News
- October 5: Elon Musk joins Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, PA (the location of the attempted assassination of July 13, 2024)
- October 20: Harris’ 60th birthday
- October 25: Trump interviewed on Joe Rogan’s podcast
- October 27: Trump’s closing speech at Madison Square Garden
- October 29: Harris’ closing speech at The Ellipse in Washington DC
Who was more talked about, Harris or Trump?
According to our analysis, keywords related to Donald Trump generated nearly 50% more results than those related to Kamala Harris. To visualize, that’s almost 3 posts mentioning Trump for every 2 posts mentioning Harris.
But not all results are positive. An analysis of sentiment over the past 3 months shows that the majority of social media posts referencing either candidate are negative:
When using social listening, politicians and brands alike should be aware that an individual metric (e.g., the number of results) without context (e.g., sentiment) can’t be used to accurately measure success.
Each campaign is resonating more with different demographics
Hootsuite’s social listening tool can track data at a very granular level. You can include a breakdown by age, gender, or even location (down to the state level) in your analysis.
For example, are Gen Z voters more excited about a certain candidate in Georgia vs. Nevada? Are female-identifying voters posting more about a certain campaign in Arizona vs. Michigan? What is each candidate’s sentiment in key swing states?
Below, you can see Hootsuite’s social listening analysis of sentiment and mentions separated by age group over the past 3 months:
Harris has more positive sentiment in the 65+ age group, whereas Trump has more positive sentiment amongst all other age groups.
When slicing sentiment data by gender, the candidates’ scores don’t differ wildly over the past 3 months:
While Trump has more positive sentiment amongst male-identifying social media users, the two candidates are almost even in terms of net sentiment (which is negative) amongst female social media users.
American pop culture and the 2024 election
Whether presidential candidates like it or not, having the world’s eyes on you 24/7 gives the internet plenty of meme fodder.
Here, we’re taking a look at how pop culture has been interacting with the currently ongoing presidential campaigns — and vice versa.
Taylor Swift vs. Elon Musk
Both campaigns have enjoyed numerous endorsements from big names in politics, arts, sports, business, and more.
Dick and Liz Cheney, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Obamas, and numerous members of the Senate, have all publicly shown support for their chosen candidate.
The support expressed by pop culture figures has also created an influx of conversation on social media. When Taylor Swift and Elon Musk endorsed Harris and Trump, respectively, the internet went wild.
We thought it would be fun to see which celebrity’s endorsement generated a bigger immediate bump in online mentions:
The above chart shows results that mention keywords related to both Trump and Musk, and Harris and Swift within the same post. We filtered for the day of each endorsement (July 13th for Musk, September 10th for Swift), to get a snapshot in time.
Our data shows that Elon Musk had a bigger pull than Taylor Swift on social media. Musk and Trump generated 229.9k results on July 13th, whereas Swift and Harris generated 176.5k results.
Both endorsements followed big campaign moments (the assassination attempt on Trump and the presidential debate), fueling social media momentum.
Kamala is BRAT
The Harris campaign jumped on a viral trend the moment it launched by embracing the pop-culture impact of Charli XCX’s 2024 album BRAT. @KamalaHQ, the Harris Campaign’s official account on X, quickly created a banner that mimicked BRAT’s styling:
Source: Kamala HQ on X
Charli XCX then chimed in herself, stating that “Kamala IS brat.” From there, Kamala x BRAT remixes went viral across almost every corner of social media.
While there are over 60k results on social media for posts mentioning both Kamala Harris and Brat, Charli XCX was (once again) eclipsed by Taylor Swift, who more than doubled Charli’s numbers with her endorsement of Harris.
Viral moments: Dogs and coconuts
One of the most viral moments of this year’s presidential race, according to social listening data, was Trump’s statement during the September 10th Presidential Debate:
“They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats.”
The Trump quote quickly went viral on social media, inspiring remixes, TikTok audios, and memes.
Similarly, the Harris Campaign was seemingly kicked off by a clip from a speech the Vice President gave in 2023 at the White House, in which she states “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and which came before you.”
Listening data shows, interestingly, that the clip’s viral surge began before Harris became the official nominee. It started gaining traction on social media following the presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and only grew more popular as her campaign for President officially kicked off.
So, whose quote went the most viral over the past 3 months? The data doesn’t lie:
“They’re eating the dogs” generated almost 10 times more results than Harris’ coconut tree soundbite, even though Harris’ quote is much older. Totals come to 839.7k results for Trump’s soundbite and “only” 87.8k results for Harris’.
What does this mean for you, and what can your brand learn from Harris vs. Trump?
As you can see, social listening uncovers a wealth of data about online audiences. With the right tools, you can learn what they’re saying, how they’re feeling, and where they’re most active. This, of course, goes well beyond the analysis of political campaigns.
Whether you’re a small business or an enterprise-level organization, you can use data points similar to the ones presented in this blog to shape your social media strategy. Customer sentiment is already affecting the ROI of your social campaigns — but you have to be aware of it to make the right strategic decisions.
Imagine how you could target your social ads if you knew that customers in North Carolina talked more about your product than in New York? Or how you could uncover your key demographics, such as the age of your ideal customer, and build content that spoke to their specific needs, preferences, and pain points?
So, what are you waiting for? With Hootsuite, you have brand mentions, trending topics, and sentiment info at your fingertips. Start enhancing your social strategy with the insights that matter today.
Disclaimers
- The purpose of this blog is to share social listening data. It’s a representation of how people talk about presidential candidates online — not a prediction of who will win on Election Day.
- Not all social media users talking about the election are American citizens who are eligible to vote in the U.S. election.
- Audience demographics — down to political preference — vary from platform to platform.
- While major social networks have guardrails against misinformation, bots and fake news are part of most modern political campaigns.
- Some social platforms limit the distribution of political content, which naturally affects impressions and engagement.
The post US presidential election statistics: 2024 social media data appeared first on Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard.
