This article analyses Trump and Harris’ posts on X (formerly Twitter) from November 5th 2024  to gain a better understanding on their use of social media during the Get Out The Vote (GOTV) stage of the 2024 Presidential Election Campaign.

Their posts on X are analysed to develop an understanding of how well each candidate targeted specific issues, voter demographics and swing states. This research suggests that Trump’s posts were broadly far more substantive seeking to convince, displaying greater specificity to toward target voters, more accurately directly addressing the key issues impacting them, meanwhile Harris sought primarily to motivate Democrat supporters.

The ‘Get Out The Vote’ (GOTV) stage of any campaign is regarded as critical to maximising turnout, especially during elections perceived to be particularly tight. GOTV focusses on polling day, traditionally taking the form of door-knocking from partisan activists to encourage electors to go to the polls. However, with social media’s newfound significance in political campaigning, it is unsurprising that platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) are now crucial to GOTV operations. This study will analyse the X posts from Trump and Harris’s official accounts on November 5th 2024 and compare them to target regions and demographics to establish how well-targeted their online GOTV operation was.

Gerber and Green (2000 p.653) highlight the relationship between decreasingly personal GOTV tactics, such as direct mail and phone-banking, and a lower turnouts, showing face-to-face door-knocking to be the most effective form of GOTV. However, Aldrich et al. (2016 p.2) argue that social media’s ability to provide bespoke targeted messaging bridges the gap between impersonal direct mails, and personal door-knocking in terms of both effectiveness and efficiency. The first part of this study will compare exit polling from 2020 and 2024 in conjunction with data on key issues to establish a baseline from which this study can then evaluate to what extent Trump and Harris personalised their GOTV posts for target voters. 

Regarding individual age groups, though Harris won the 18-29 age range, she received the lowest level of support from this group for any Democrat candidate this century, receiving 5% less than Biden did in 2020. Meanwhile, Trump increased his share of young voters from 36% to 43%, thanks in part to his increased popularity among young black and Hispanic men, whose support grew by 19% since 2020(Hagopian, 2024; Molski, 2024).

This shift resulted in Hispanic support turning toward the Republicans for the first time in US history. This was visible in both rural and suburban areas, such as Osceola County on the outskirts of Orlando, which is 54% Hispanic, and Biden won by 13% in 2020, but which Trump claimed by 2% in 2024 (Hagopian, 2024). Additionally, Trump’s share of black voters rose from around 10% to around 20%, mainly driven by young men. Meanwhile, Harris’ support among black women increased only 1% from Biden’s in 2020 (Business Standard, 2024; Hagopian, 2024).

Though the gender divide was not as great as predicted, Harris’ overall support among women was down 2% from 2020 to only 53% (Business Standard, 2024). Despite the Harris campaign’s emphasis on abortion rights, the issue was only ranked most important for women aged 18-29. Meanwhile, all other female age groups across all races prioritised controlling inflation and the protection of democracy as their top issue (Kearney, 2024).

These demographics are key when looking at the national picture, however, due to their non-partisan nature and the number of Electoral College votes they possess, they are in addition to attaining support in the seven key swing states, all of which were won by Trump. Namely, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Finally, we must look at the most important issues for each party. Discussion of these issues during the GOTV phase is essential to convince partisan voters of the importance of heading to the polls. Amongst Republicans, the economy, violent crime, immigration and foreign policy were the top 4 most important issues. Meanwhile, healthcare, Supreme Court appointments, the economy and abortion were top amongst Democrats (Pew Research Centre, 2024). This roughly aligns with the top issues named by an aggregate of the American public. Namely, inflation, immigration, jobs and the economy (Statista, 2024).

This study will now analyse a selection of GOTV X posts from both candidates, and it is essential to consider to what extent each candidate addressed these key issues and if posts discussed issues relevant to key voter groups.

Trump

First, the form of Trump’s posts. Almost all contained a video edited akin to a movie trailer or motivational video with sharp cuts, bold headings and voiceover performed by a black male. Meanwhile, clips displayed construction or factory workers, firefighters and soldiers of all races alongside Trump in workplaces adorned with American flags or Trump rallies. This is clearly targeted a young multicultural male audience and portrays Trump as an everyman separate from mainstream politics.

The content of the voiceovers furthers the dramatic motivational theme, posing Trump as an outsider defending the normal citizen against the political class through refrains such as, “they came after his family, his business, his freedom”, but he continued “because he wasn’t fighting for himself, he was fighting for you”, before cutting to a clip of Trump at a rally proclaiming “They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you and I’m just standing in their way”, and “He took a bullet for you and now he needs you to vote for him”(Trump, 2024a). This clearly portrays Trump as a defender of democracy, one of the top issues listed by Republicans following the alleged election theft of 2020.

This portrayal seeks to propagate the ‘Trump the hero’ narrative, which juxtaposes Trump with the orthodox political class to embed an emotive call to action. One explanation for producing such high-budget content is its propensity for virality and to increase reposts. Reposting is a key psychological component of digital GOTV due to younger voters’ susceptibility to the “social vote phenomenon”, which describes how young voters are more likely to vote if the idea is reinforced by their peers (Rainie, 2012). Friedrichs‘ (2003) study showed that GOTV messages delivered by someone within the same age-bracket as the recipient resulted in youth turnout increasing by 8%. Therefore, the dramatic youth-friendly style of Trump’s posts is clearly designed to appeal to young male voters, to lend itself to being shared among peers and therefore to utilise the social vote phenomenon. Harris (2024i) also tapped into, though less subtlety, simply asking people who had voted to “share this link with three people”, however this was not embedded into the form and style of the post as Trump’s was.

This depiction of Trump as a defender of democracy is continued through graphics containing “Swamp the vote”, “Too big to rig”, and “Protect the Vote” (Trump, 2024b). These phrases reinforce Trump’s assertions around the 2020 election, the legitimacy of the Democratic Party and provide a call to action.

However, not all of Trump’s posts contained this level of production value. Whereas the ‘Trump the hero’ narrative was often on the highly produced end of the spectrum, his direct calls to GOTV were the opposite, low-production shakily handheld phone camera footage taken on the fly. This format allowed the creation of personalised content in response to specific updates in targeted localities, continuing to paint him as external to orthodox politicians due the videos similarity to those voters may themselves record at home.

An additional facet within the defence of democracy narrative, whereby Harris provided links to resources on where to vote, Trump shared websites where the public could report voter fraud. This heightened the perceived urgency and, therefore, the salience of the election and increased voters’ likelihood to GOTV by attaching the democratic act of voting with the patriotic act of personally detecting fraud and protecting the vote. Kopti (2023, p.19) recognises this as a key facet of Trump’s GOTV strategy in previous elections, wherein “he utilised social media to instil fear about the uncertainty of the future” to motivate GOTV.

Furthermore, Trump reminded voters that so long as they were in line when polls closed, they could still vote. This was backed up by saying “stay in line, don’t let them take you off that line”, which thereby suggests that there may be people attempting to stop Trump supporters casting their vote (Trump, 2024f). This again aimed to increase the perceived threat to democracy and the salience of an individual vote, while also posing the act of voting as one of defiance against orthodox politicians. Furthermore, Trump uploaded ten posts telling voters to stay in line, 5 of which individually named key swing states targeting key voters, even provided polling information about specific counties within swing states. 

Regarding the content of Trump’s posts, voiceovers were often interspersed with Trump’s speeches directly addressing key issues in the political debate. One example which ties together the dramatic form of Trump’s posts with content which addresses the issues is a voiceover stating, “One man had the courage to step forward. To take on the corrupt ruling class, to battle Washington insiders who raided our factories, pried open our borders and sent our best Americans to die in desert wars overseas” (Trump, 2024a).

This ethos was repeated throughout his posts, another stating: Four years ago when Trump left office, “We surrendered our borders, our paycheques and our courage. Our patriotism was called toxic, men could beat up women and win medals for it, but there was no prize for the man who got up every day to do his job” (Trump, 2024c). This message combines the social conservatism surrounding the debate over trans participation in sports and feminism, with the top issue of inflation. Therefore, this message is easily seen as targeted toward a socially and economically conservative male audience. This targeting is highlighted by a subsequent post in which Trump thanked Joe Rogan for his endorsement, a figure whose audience is predominantly male and whose podcast Trump appeared on during the campaign (Trump, 2024d). 

Finally, in one post, Trump directly addressed the top four issues listed by Republicans, providing them with a tangible reason to GOTV:

Starting on day one we will defeat inflation and we will make America affordable again. We will cut your energy costs in half. It’s time for the working man and woman to finally catch a break.… We will restore world peace… through strength… I will launch the largest deportation program in American history. I will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell out. (Trump, 2024e)

Harris

Harris posted less frequently on election day than Trump, relying less heavily on video favouring text posts with links to her website and a graphics often stating “when we vote, we win”. Therefore, Harris’ posts were far less susceptible to virality and shareability in the way Trump’s were, due to the different levels of production value.

Where video was used, it was always of a lower production value to Trump’s, and contained one of two scenarios: First, her performing duties as Vice President or speaking to voters alongside Waltz at rallies. This usually would not include a voiceover, instead opting for music. The most notable example of this was her use of the Beyoncé track Freedom, which tied in her use of civil rights rhetoric which will be discussed later on, with her female non-white target audience (Harris, 2024k). Second, videos offering first person testimony from, predominantly though not exclusively, non-white and female voters aged 18-50 (Harris, 2024k). In both types of post by Harris, video’s seek to hone in on Harris’ target demographics, however, they do this at the risk of alienating other groups and fail to connect voting for Harris with tangible easy to understand issues.

Harris’s message discipline was reasonably strong throughout, changing only toward the end of elections day, as will be discussed later. However, Harris’ struggled to evoke a clear narrative, due to the subtly of her rhetoric. Harris’s election day tagline was a far more subtle than Trump’s, continually reiterating  when we vote we win, with a link to IWillvote.com (Harris, 2024k). It’s unspecific positivity and lack of connection with a tangible issue suggests this message is targeted purely at supporters, rather than trying to convince floating voters, reassuring them that hope is not lost.

The hypothesis that Harris’ posts were targeted primarily at her supporters is aided by her overwhelmingly positivity and lack of identification with specific issues. Posts are not attempting to convince voters, because to a Democrat supporter the issues are obvious. Instead, Harris repeated positive refrains such as “make your voices heard” and “in your hands” in order to motivate supporters, many of whom may have concluded that Trump was going to win, to go out and vote anyway (Harris, 2024f).

This inward facing message is repeated in a number of videos, for example one of Harris at a rally saying “Today we vote because we love our country and believe in the promise of America”, with repeated use of the words together and community combined with soft patriotism, as seen in, “We are finishing this campaign as we started: with optimism, with energy and with joy” (Harris, 2024c, 2024h). Messages such as “[our campaign] is about fuel from the power of the people and about building community” evokes the sense that supporters are should be motivated to vote because they owe it to each other and their shared values, rather than specific issues (Harris, 2024k).

This is further evident in posts encouraging younger voters to GOTV such as, “Hopped on the phone to speak with voters (and one future voter) today. Thanks for picking up my call, Jennifer and Sage!” and “I love Gen Z, and I am grateful to our first-time voters for making their voices heard” (Harris, 2024i, 2024d). This message was accompanied by a video of first-time voters in Georgia and California giving their reasons for voting for Harris, such as healthcare, opportunities for women, economic plans and rights for all (Harris, 2024d). This is an attempt to tap into the social vote phenomenon within key audiences, and offers a rare insight into key issues not visible in other posts.

Another example of Harris’ attempts to identify with her target audience is evident in a video showing an ethnically diverse group of older women and 18-29 year olds explaining how good it felt to vote for Harris (Harris, 2024f). This provides a clear view of her campaign’s key demographic and diametrically opposes Trump’s campaign of fear with one of joy. This links in with another trend in Harris’ communications, the use of civil rights rhetoric to increase voter salience. 

Harris’ posts lent heavily into the zeitgeist of civil rights through phrases such as “Generations of Americans led the fight for freedom… Now, the baton is in our hands” and “vote for a future of freedom, opportunity and justice, not just for some, but for all”, even going to far as to quote former Georgia Congressman John Lewis stating, “democracy is not a state, it is an act” (Harris, 2024a, 2024e). Notably, Georgia was one of only three locations Harris mentioned by name, all of which were in swing states.

Whereas Trump created urgency through references to the 2020 election, Harris (2024g) sought to increase urgency through civil rights rhetoric, posting, “It is your right to make your voice heard”. Her style can be encapsulated in one post, “This race is going to be tight until the very end, but together we will win” (Harris, 2024b). This, like Trump, seeks to increase the perceived salience of a single vote, however unlike Trump, Harris’ posts sought to motivate based on values rather than on specific issues, therefore delivering a far less powerful call to action.  

To a limited extent, the positivity in the Harris campaign could be seen as a means of differentiating herself from Trump’s reliance on fear, however, Harris’ rhetoric became more similar to Trump’s as election day drew to a close. On the evening of November 5th, Harris’ posted a video of a large multi-ethnic group, many of whom were thirty or older, overlaid with the words “Save democracy, restore our rights, save our planet, defend our freedoms, protect our future, Stay in line” (Harris, 2024l). This video bore the caption “If you’re in line when the polls close, stay in line, because you have a right to make your voice heard” (Harris, 2024l). This was followed by another post with the caption “If you have any trouble casting your ballot, call out Voter Assistance Hotline” (Harris, 2024g). This is a clear departure from Harris’ values based motivation, articulating messages of fear of what a Trump presidency could result in. Though this could potentially be a last attempt to convince floating voters, it is most useful when noted as a departure from the positive GOTV messaging she had consistently used all day.

Conclusion

With the exception of young black and Hispanic men, Trump’s support remained within 5% of what he received in 2020 when analysing different ages, races and genders. However, Harris’ support dropped minorly with all of these groups other than young white and African American women. Therefore, though it is true to say that Trump won, it may be more accurate to say that Harris lost.

Part of this can be put down to the GOTV operation. Trump exhibited a personal approach, creating bespoke messages for different states throughout the day, touching on key issues proven to resonate with his target demographic of young black and Hispanic men. Meanwhile, Harris’ GOTV operation remained stable, though static, reiterating inward facing intangible optimism aimed primarily at supporters without addressing how a Harris presidency would actively benefit voters. Ultimately, it was a battle of issues versus values and the academic optimism of Harris’ (2024f) “when we vote, we win” stood no chance against the visceral, emotive power of Trump’s (2024e), “Together we will make America powerful, wealthy, healthy, strong, proud, safe and great again”. 

Future studies should break down the social media GOTV operation of each candidate individually, giving space to analyse the lengthy videos both released on November 5th, something this study simply didn’t have the space to do. Additionally, further study should be conducted into the metadata of these posts to understand their reach and their interaction with voters. This could then be compared to surveys and voter records to meaningfully contribute to the literature investigating the effectiveness of digital GOTV as a strategy.