Kamala Harris campaign is going down on Truth Social, here’s how

Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign took control of an account on Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform in July, and Newsweek has gone in-depth with its evolution.
Even while social media is already widely used in politics, this election cycle marks the first time a candidate has a dedicated platform. Following the assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2022, which resulted in his suspension from key platforms like Facebook and X (Twitter at the time), Trump founded Truth Social in February of that same year.

In October 2023, President Joe Biden’s campaign created an account on Truth Social. However, in July of this year, it seems that this account was renamed as HarrisHQ, after Biden’s withdrawal from the contest and his endorsement of Harris as the Democratic nominee.

Truth Social’s own account shared the following on July 23: “A new candidate demands a new handle. Welcome to #TruthSocial, @KamalaHQ.”

Research conducted in June by digital marketing firm Search Logistics revealed that 77 percent of Democratic voters said they would never use the site, and that the typical Truth Social user is likely to be a male Republican between the ages of 18 and 34.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the Democratic candidate, who is running against Trump in this year’s election, has received very few favorable comments on the majority of the postings posted by his campaign account. Truth Social’s welcoming message to @HarrisHQ hinted at this.

An AI-generated picture of Biden and Harris wearing clown makeup was uploaded by a MAGA fan with a photograph of Trump as their backdrop (@ErichDerbsch). The caption said, “Switching out one clown for another clown won’t change the circus.”

A number of additional responses carried on the clown motif, and numerous made repeated allusions to Harris’s laugh—the subject of a number of earlier internet comments.

With Trump’s mug photo as her background image, a “freedom-loving patriotic mom” (@Ree4Freedom) wrote: “(Harris) can go straight to hell.” She and her campaign are not of interest to me.”

Although caustic, one account (@Trump3311) that has tweeted many pro-Trump posts was a little friendlier: “Welcome Kamala! We eagerly await your insightful and poetic remarks. Please note that we are not communists in this place. Republican Constitutionalists are who we are. MAGA in 2024.

Hundreds of reactions were sent to an October 10 @HarrisHQ tweet about unfilled seats at a Trump event in Pennsylvania. It seems that these kinds of responses have persisted throughout the campaign.

An picture was published by the “tactical memes” account @LouCozzolino, which has a history of posting anti-Democratic propaganda. The graphic said, “Kamala: ‘People leave Trump rallies early.'” Please B****, they don’t even flee when the gunfire starts.”

It seems that the user was alluding to the attempted murder of Trump on July 13 at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Numerous responses also made reference to previous criticism of the Biden administration in general as well as the recent storm response from Harris, from Trump and other MAGA supporters.The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has come out to refute some of the statements that have been declared incorrect, but Harris seems to still be affected by the debate surrounding the government’s storm response.

When Newsweek spoke with political scientists about why Harris’s campaign would maintain an account on Truth Social, it was received with almost all negative responses.

John Geer, a political science professor and dean of the College of Arts and Science at Nashville, Tennessee’s private Vanderbilt University, commented that Harris “covers a few bases with this approach.”

He said to Newsweek, “An account on Truth Social demonstrates that she is attempting to connect with every voter—a campaign topic. Trump’s curiosity and attention will be piqued by such an account, which may permit some trolling.In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of her message once again, she is hoping that the news media will highlight this aspect of her campaign. To be honest, it is a cheap investment with a reasonable rate of return.”

Thomas Gift, an associate professor of political science at the University College London (UCL) School of Public Policy, had a similar opinion, saying that “for politicians, generally, the more counter-programming that they can run, the better.”

He said in Newsweek: “Even if Truth Social is Trump’s platform and leans to the right, there’s little to no harm in trying to appeal to skeptical voters.”It is arguable that one of the errors made by previous Democratic candidates was to write off viewers of unpopular media.

“Whether that’s a social media network like Truth Social or a legacy media like Fox News, Democrats can’t complain that conservative voters think a certain way if they make no effort to reach them where they are.”

Southeast Missouri State University political science professor Jeremy Walling told Newsweek, “The first goal would just be exposure.”

“The question of who they’re targeting is tricky,” he said, “as most Trump supporters would view any content sponsored by Harris as unserious, especially those who switched from traditional social media to Truth Social.”

“However, it’s possible that within this population is a subgroup of citizens who were attracted to Truth Social due to the ‘freedom of expression’ claims made by Trump (etc.), but who might be skeptical of some aspect of Trump or his campaign (I guess I’m referring to the ‘look past his personality and look at his policies’ crowd).”

He also said that Elon Musk did not control X at the time Truth Social was founded and that Biden was still the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.

“So again, it’s possible that this is a group of individuals on Truth Social who might be more favorable to the messaging of the Harris campaign than that of Biden, but haven’t really seen as much of her campaign’s content,” Walling said. “They’re not getting it from Fox or Newsmax, they’re not getting it from Trump.”

“So the Harris campaign sees this as a relatively cheap opportunity to expose content to a group of potentially persuadable voters, however small this group might be,” he said.

November 5 is Election Day, which is less than three weeks away. It is anticipated that Harris and Trump’s presidential contest will continue to be very close. Here are the most recent polls.