Joe Biden

Biden nets 67,000 TikTok followers in first day

Author: SAMANTHA LATSON Source: Politico

February 13, 2024 at 07:36

Democratic political consultants praised President Joe Biden’s foray onto a platform with a large audience of voters he’s polling poorly among. | Andrew Harnik/AP

By comparison, he has a long way to go to catch up with his X accounts.

Joe Biden didn’t necessarily go viral in the 24 hours since his campaign launched a TikTok account, but the debut hasn’t been a bust, either.

So far, Biden’s account has picked up 67,000 followers. It’s hard to say how big or small that figure is for the leader of the free world, on a platform that’s decidedly not his demographic. But by comparison, he has a long way to go to catch up with his X account, which has nearly 38 million followers, or his campaign X account, which has 295,000.

As of Monday evening, the TikTok account had published four videos. The inaugural post — in which Biden answered lighthearted questions about the Super Bowl, and trolled Republicans over conspiracy theories — racked up 6 million views. A second post — titled “weird brag” and featuring clips of Donald Trump boasting about overturning Roe v. Wade — got over 84,000 views.

Another video of Biden poking fun at his age got 70,000 views. A fourth post Monday evening highlighted Trump’s recent comments that he would encourage Russia to go after “delinquent” NATO countries.

Democratic political consultants praised Biden’s foray onto a platform with a large audience of voters he’s polling poorly among.

Mark Jablonowski, president and chief technology officer at the digital firm DSPolitical, said Biden’s team seemed to inject the right amount of humor and cheeky digs in its posts.

“The last thing any campaign should do is use TikTok for posting sterile, boring content,” he said, adding that it’s a dire time for the Biden campaign to reach young voters on issues such as student loan forgiveness, abortion, and climate change.

Republicans were focused on China-security concerns surrounding the president joining TikTok, as opposed to the account’s content.

“Why is Biden on TikTok? Easy. Because he’s desperate,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) wrote on X. “What message does it send? He doesn’t give a rip about Americans’ security or China’s spying.”

But Biden campaign officials, who insisted they were taking security precautions, crowed about their TikTok premiere in a news release Monday.

It is “proof positive of both our commitment and success in finding new, innovative ways to reach voters in an evolving, fragmented, and increasingly personalized media environment,” said Deputy Campaign Manager Rob Flaherty.