As Harris and Trump debated, a social media battle raged
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People at a restaurant watch the presidential debate between former president Donald Trump and Vice-President Kamala Harris, in Atlanta on Sept 10, 2024.
PHOTOS: NYTIMES
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NEW YORK - While tens of millions of Americans tuned in to watch a debate between Republican Donald Trump and Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris
Social media users were off from the opening moment of the debate, with Democrats seizing the moment Ms Harris walked across the stage to shake Trump’s hand and introduce herself.
“Kamala said you’re gonna shake my hand dammit!” social media user Adam James Smith posted on social media platform X, to 40,000 likes.
Part of Vice-President Harris’ debate plan was to goad Trump into saying things that could become viral social media clips, advisers said earlier, and the debate suggested that strategy paid off.
Supporters circulated images of Ms Harris’ sometimes bemused, sometimes sceptical facial expressions as Trump cycled through a series of familiar falsehoods and repeated a false conspiracy that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pet dogs and cats.
“THEY’RE EATING THE DOGS,” quickly trended on X, buoyed by thousands of posts – including many confused at the quote’s relevance in a presidential debate, after Trump said “They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats.”
Trump supporters, meanwhile, jumped on his response as he discussed Ms Harris’ economic plan, saying it was simplistic and copied her boss President Joe Biden’s agenda.
“Run, Spot, run,” he said, referring to a popular children’s book series used to teach kids to read in decades past.
Social media is playing an even more significant role in the 2024 election cycle than it did in the past, political strategists say.
Both the Democratic and Republican parties have drafted content creators, or influencers, to push information on their policies and candidates.
Overall, Trump outperforms Ms Harris and her campaign on X and TikTok based on followers. The Harris campaign’s official Kamala HQ account has 1.3 million followers on X, compared with Trump’s 2.4 million.
However, her campaign has received over 100 million “likes” on its videos on TikTok versus Trump’s 44 million. REUTERS
