Social Media and Candidate Favorability: TikTok and Support for Harris During the 2024 Presidential Election

During Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential bid, there was a substantial wave of social media messaging aimed at mobilizing voters. Previous research indicates that many American voters obtain political news through social media; therefore, political candidates often use social media as a critical campaign strategy to garner widespread attention. We examine the influence of different Harris TikTok videos during the shortened 2024 presidential election to assess which affect favorability towards Harris. We demonstrate that during presidential elections with polarizing political candidates, social media messaging matters. We find that traditional campaign videos posted on the platform have greater influence than trendy TikTok “edits.” In particular, long form campaign ads posted to TikTok increased favorability for Harris. On the other hand, videos in which Harris explicitly discussed race or called out JD Vance or President Trump had limited influence on support, with some exceptions. In an increasingly digitized political environment, our findings are the first to document the effects of short-form videos on candidate favorability, the effectiveness of social media, the effectiveness of sharing social media with networks, and the use of different messages for voters.