During the 2020 presidential election, hundreds of TikTok creators joined forces to support Joe Biden’s campaign against Donald Trump with social media videos and online events. However, many Gen Z influencers have since turned their backs on the US president.
The coalition “TikTok for Biden” has now become “Gen-Z for Change.” The coalition has not yet supported Biden’s re-election.
“Biden is out of tune with young people on a number of key issues,” the coalition’s 20-year-old founder, Aidan Kohn-Murphy, told the Washington Post. The frustration of young “progressive leaders” is a “barometer of the widespread discontent of Gen Z voters.”
On Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Twitch, there is widespread discontent over Biden’s positions on a number of issues: the war in Gaza, the climate crisis and the possible TikTok ban. The White House’s strategy for monitoring online creators has also changed – critical voices are increasingly excluded from cooperation, said influencer Kahlil Greene. Biden’s team would claim that they treat influencers the same way they treat the press. Broadcasters like “Fox News” would have to allow them to attend the press conference, said the content creator. But “when it comes to influencers, they only let people in who agree with them.”
Greene said he himself was no longer invited to the White House after criticizing the government over the TikTok ban and the war in the Middle East.
A White House spokesperson said it had taken “historic steps” to “engage digital creators.” It said it would “continue to amplify their voices and use a variety of platforms to reach Americans who don’t follow traditional news as closely.”
In the upcoming election, the Biden campaign began contacting influencers earlier and on a larger scale than before, reports the Washington Post. An influencer marketing firm was brought in to help with acquisitions, and a manager position was even advertised for a collaboration with meme sites. According to the marketing firm, however, content creators are overall less keen to get involved in a political campaign than they were in 2020.
In 2020, “Gen Z brought Biden into office with their votes and platforms,” said influencer Hassan Khadair, who has 6.3 million followers on TikTok alone.
This time, Khadair said, “he has to earn that vote. We’re not going to just give it to him because we don’t want Trump to win. We’ve done it before. We won’t do it again.”
While some Gen Z influencers are turning away from Biden, Trump appears to be making astonishing gains among young voters, with polls suggesting there could be a significant shift toward Trump among the country’s youngest voters in the 2024 election.
According to a New York Times poll, Biden is only two percentage points ahead of his rival Trump among 18- to 29-year-olds. According to the Quinnipiac University Poll Center, Trump is even one percentage point ahead among registered voters between the ages of 18 and 34.
By comparison, a CNN poll found that Biden was ahead by 24 percentage points among 18- to 29-year-olds in 2020 and Hillary Clinton was ahead by 19 percentage points in 2016.
However, the results of the election polls could be distorted due to the survey methodology, because surveying young voters via landline calls has become more difficult in recent years.
Biden is also dependent on the votes of young voters in the presidential election in November. And the Democrats are also competing with the conservatives online: While Biden is having difficulty recruiting influencers for his political agenda, Trump and other conservatives have a large number of online supporters.
