POLITICO Nightly: JD Vance’s TikTok flop

By Anusha Mathur Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks at a campaign event at Wollard International, Aug. 7, 2024, in Eau Claire, Wis., as seen on a monitor. | Alex Brandon/AP BALANCE OF POWER — When Kamala Harris opened her own personal TikTok account in late July, separate from her existing campaign account, within days she received millions of likes and hundreds of thousands of supportive comments welcoming her to the app. The same can’t be said for JD Vance. The Republican vice presidential nominee’s account, which he opened last Friday, isn’t sparking much hype at all. Vance’s entrance onto the app was something of a disaster, and now his account is barely breathing. It’s emblematic of a recent turn of events in the campaign social media wars — with Harris replacing Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, it’s overturned the balance of power on apps like TikTok. Prior to Harris’ ascension, Trump dominated Biden in the social media space. When Trump joined TikTok in June, he outpaced the Biden campaign’s total follower count within mere hours. But Harris changed the equation. When she joined TikTok, enthusiastic Gen Z users were already mobilizing in her support – meming her distinct laugh, creating audio edits of her funny phrases, and compiling videos of her best roasts of Trump. That receptive environment made it easier for her account to gain the traction needed for lift off. She alluded to the organic support in a brief debut video on July 25: “I’ve heard that recently I’ve been on the ‘For You Page’, so I thought I’d get on here myself,” she said directly into the camera. TikTok users loved it. The acknowledgement — and winking appreciation — of the existing content served as encouragement for the people creating it. And the video’s simplicity — it was just a few seconds long — avoided the sheen of inauthenticity. As of today, the post has amassed 31.9 million views, 4.7 million likes and 140,300 comments. The top comments are overwhelmingly positive. Harris has taken full advantage of this momentum in her personal account, creating 16 videos in 14 days and amassing 24.5 million likes in total. Her campaign account, Kamala HQ, has posted 64 times – over three times per day – since Harris moved to the top of the presidential ticket, and the account boasts 65.5 million likes in total. That momentum has carried over to her new running mate, Tim Walz. The Minnesota governor doesn’t have a TikTok account as yet, but he has caused a stir on the social media platform in the 24 hours since he was tapped, with memes circulating of him at the state fair with his daughter and various compilations of the Minnesota governor calling the Trump/Vance ticket ‘weird.’ The Harris campaign’s proliferation of TikTok content stands in stark contrast with the Republican ticket. Trump, too, has a large following on TikTok — 9.7 million followers — and he has amassed 30.5 million likes. But he is not very active: he has posted 9 times in total since creating it on June 1. One of his videos remains up even though there is no sound accompanying the text on the post. Trump has yet to post a single time with Vance. By comparison, Harris has posted content with Walz in it three times in the last 24 hours. Without getting any lift from Trump, Vance’s account has floundered, despite a debut video that seemed poised to go viral. Vance had partnered with the Nelkboys, a Canadian-American YouTube channel and entertainment company that are a Trump family favorite. Donald Trump Jr. was one of their first podcast guests in 2021. Trump himself has worked with the Nelkboys several times , and even personally praised them at a rally in Nevada. The Vance/Nelkboys collaboration was part of a new initiative called Send the Vote, a $20-million voter registration and turnout program aimed at courting the kind of crowd attracted to Nelk's content — young men. "Yo JD, we want to welcome you to TikTok," Kyle Forgeard, a founder of the Nelkboys, says in the TikTok video as he hands Vance a box of Happy Dad, a brand of hard seltzers founded by Nelk in 2021. But, despite what seemed to be a high budget operation, the video itself was average at best. While the full interview posted on YouTube is well edited, the TikTok appeared to be an afterthought — nothing more than a series of shoddily spliced clips of Vance posing for photos with the Nelkboys and sitting for an interview with them. Now, it stagnates at 187,400 likes and 9,041 comments – an unusually high number of them ridiculing Vance. Worse, every single top-liked comment alluded to a false rumor started on X that Vance wrote about having sex with an "inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions" in his memoir Hillbilly Elegy . Some users expressed surprise at how poorly Vance’s debut post went: “Imagine your job is running jd vance’s tik tok account and dude asks ‘how’s the video doing on tiktok,’” one comment reads. Vance has not released another TikTok since. Some chalk up the unflattering rollout to a numbers game – they say young people are statistically more likely to support Democrats, so naturally Harris supporters flooded Vance’s comment section. While it does appear that the majority of comments under Vance’s post are written by Democrats, it’s also true that Trump has 5.5 million more followers than Harris and an organic army of smaller MAGA content creators, and these people have not jumped to Vance’s rescue. Nor have they followed Vance’s account, which sits at only 121,500 followers. The fact that Vance’s team hasn’t deleted the multitude of couch comments is another sign of its failure to launch. Unlike other social media platforms, TikTok provides users the option to delete comments, which many people take advantage of. Before Vance created his TikTok, Mary Morgan, 23-year-old Trump-supporter and influencer who runs a YouTube channel called Pop Culture Crisis, told POLITICO that Republicans have shown a consistent disregard for the importance of energizing their base on social media in this election cycle. “Trump had this thing called meme magic on his side in 2016,” Morgan said, speaking about how 4chan created a space for young conservatives to rally behind Trump. “And now, the tables have kind of turned even though the pattern stays the same. Trump is running against a woman again. The tables have turned because now the right wing doesn't understand TikTok.” Morgan worries that the party’s inability to move its young base on social media could cost the party the 2024 election. “All of these sound bites that are being shared around from Kamala – ‘do you think you just fell out of a coconut tree,’ or Venn diagrams, or whatever stupid sound bite it may be,” Morgan said “Trump had moments like that non-stop when he ran for the first time. And that really energized young voters, specifically young male voters, if we're being honest. And now the opposite effect is happening for young female voters.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at amathur@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @AnushaMathur4 .   During unprecedented times, POLITICO Pro Analysis gives you the insights you need to focus your policy strategy. Live briefings, policy trackers, and and people intelligence secures your seat at the table. Learn more.     What'd I Miss? — Market turmoil gives Fed ‘license’ to cut rates: Growing anxiety about a weakening economy is fueling pressure on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to move quickly to calm market jitters. But he’s showing no sign of alarm. The central bank chief has been under fire since Friday’s jobs report showed an unexpected jump in the unemployment rate — the kind of number that would’ve led Fed policymakers to cut borrowing costs at their meeting last week if it had come only a few days earlier. Still, they’re giving no indication that immediate action is necessary to avoid a recession, with unemployment still at only 4.3 percent and inflation looking close to being tamed. — Education Department delays release of financial aid form — again: Education Department officials announced Wednesday that they will delay the release of its financial aid application , another embarrassing hiccup for an agency that has struggled to fix problems with a revamped form for nearly a year. The department will make the form available on Dec. 1, with a limited number of students and schools able to receive a test form on Oct. 1, the usual deadline. More will get the form in November, part of a phased release meant to avoid last year’s disastrous fate when issues with a new form led to months of delays. — Azerbaijan government comped trip to New York City mayoral aides: A former New York City mayoral aide, whose home was raided by federal agents last fall, visited Azerbaijan with another Eric Adams official last year, according to public documents and information provided by City Hall. The Azerbaijani government paid for the two mayoral aides to visit the country on what was billed as an economic development trip, just months before the raid. Nightly Road to 2024 NEAR COLLISION — Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz spent their first full day as running mates on Wednesday rallying Democrats across the Midwest, but also got an idea of just how hotly contested the region will be when they overlapped on a Wisconsin tarmac with Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance . The Democrats’ trip began in Wisconsin before shifting to Michigan and was aimed at shoring up support among the younger, diverse, labor-friendly voters who were instrumental in helping President Joe Biden win the 2020 election. LABOR FALLS IN — Vice President Kamala Harris has rapidly consolidated the support of the nation’s most powerful labor unions , adding critical organizing muscle to her campaign as she tries to limit former President Donald Trump’s inroads with the working-class voters who could swing the election. Since taking over the top of the ticket, Harris has stressed to top labor leaders that she plans to stick with the staunchly pro-union agenda that President Joe Biden instituted, leaning on the administration’s record to secure the backing of a movement that’s enjoyed its closest relationship with the White House in decades. PROTO-WALZ — Kamala Harris never got close enough in her first presidential run to seriously consider choosing her running mate. But the working theory behind her selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was floated more than five years ago . There was just a different running mate in mind — Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. When Harris’ top aides at the time privately mused about the kind of partner they wanted to see on the ticket, they spoke about an avuncular, and at times rumpled white man with broad appeal across the industrial Midwest. The ideal vice president would be someone with a proven record of winning battleground races yet also deeply credible with progressives and organized labor; someone who could lay the wood to Republicans, but also could connect with her West Coast credentials via their shared warmth and genuine banter; someone who was a bit older, perhaps, and comfortable playing her No. 2. In these admittedly premature conversations from Harris’ camp five years ago, two advisers put a name behind some of the qualities: Brown. AROUND THE WORLD Taylor Swift performs at Wembley Stadium as part of her Eras Tour on Friday, June 21, 2024 in London. | Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP TAYLOR SWIFT SHOWS CANCELED — Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna were called off by organizers after Austrian police foiled a terror plot linked to Islamic State . Austrian authorities said in a statement late Wednesday that they had arrested two men, a 19-year-old in the Austrian town of Ternitz and a second man in Vienna, who were preparing to carry out a terror attack. Pop star Swift was supposed to play three shows in Austria as part of the European leg of her sell-out Eras tour. ‘LARGE-SCALE PROVOCATION’ — Following reports that Ukrainian troops are engaged in fierce combat on Russian territory , Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Wednesday called it a “large-scale provocation.” According to his statement at Wednesday's Cabinet meeting, Putin said that “the Kyiv regime is conducting indiscriminate shooting from various types of weapons, including missiles, at civilian buildings, residential houses and ambulances.” Exiled Russian units allied with Kyiv have launched cross-border attacks into Russia in the past, but this week's reported incursion into Russia's Kursk region is one of the largest. It is also the first that has apparently involved regular Ukrainian forces — and has sparked the greatest alarm in the Kremlin. THE FUGITIVE — Police in Barcelona are trying to stop the separatist leader Carles Puigdemont from going ahead with his threat to sneak into Spain and be in the Catalan parliament when it votes on a new regional president on Thursday. Puigdemont wants to return to Spain even though he faces immediate arrest. He took to social media Wednesday to make his plan public, saying of the vote in the parliament: “I have to be there and I want to be there. That is why I have embarked on the return journey from exile.”   SUBSCRIBE TO GLOBAL PLAYBOOK: Don’t miss out on POLITICO’s Global Playbook, our newsletter taking you inside pivotal discussions at the most influential gatherings in the world. Suzanne Lynch delivers the world's elite and influential moments directly to you. Stay in the global loop. SUBSCRIBE NOW .     Nightly Number 800 The rough number of missiles launched by U.S. forces against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels that have controlled Yemen since November. U.S. forces have also launched seven rounds of air strikes in what has become the most sustained military campaign by American forces since the anti-ISIS air war in Iraq and Syria. RADAR SWEEP MONEY TRAIN — Olympic medalists, it turns out, get more than just a medal for their feats. While the International Olympic Committee does not give out prize money for winning medals, several countries do reward their athletes with medal bonuses . The best country to win a medal for? Hong Kong (technically, a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China) which hands out $768,000 for gold, $384,000 for silver and $192,000 for bronze. Singapore is another that offers a big payout, paying its athletes $745,000 for a gold. The U.S., by contrast, pays $38,000. Lee Ying Shan breaks down the medal payouts for CNBC. Parting Image On this date in 1986: Veterans, holding their medals they received from three wars, stand beneath a banner in San Francisco, Calif., protesting America's policies in Central America. | Jim Gerberich/AP Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh   Follow us

POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA