Three Key Takeaways:
- Kamala Harris’ campaign was exposed for secretly paying social media influencers millions to manufacture support, using platforms like TikTok and Instagram to push pro-Harris content.
- Despite spending over $9 million on influencers and campaigns, the results were dismal, with many videos and programs garnering minimal views, showing a disconnect between the effort and actual voter engagement.
- The failure of the campaign’s social media strategy highlighted that voters were more concerned with tangible policy issues than with manufactured online enthusiasm, contributing to Harris’ poor performance in the 2024 election.
Donald Trump wiped the floor with Kamala Harris despite Democrats spending a fortune on her campaign.
Now we know where some of that money went.
And Kamala Harris’ campaign just got exposed for this shocking social media deception.
Democrats spent millions on fake social media enthusiasm
A bombshell report from RealClearInvestigations has revealed that Harris’ campaign secretly paid social media influencers millions of dollars to manufacture enthusiasm for her candidacy.
Way to Win, a major Democrat donor group, spent more than $9.1 million on social media influencers during the 2024 Presidential election to create an illusion of organic support for the Harris campaign.
“The tidal wave of enthusiasm was not entirely genuine,” RealClearInvestigations reported after obtaining internal documents and WhatsApp messages from Democrat strategists behind the effort.
The group funded over 550 content creators who published 6,644 posts across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, and X. Way to Win coached these creators on phrases, issue areas, and key themes to “disseminate pro-Kamala content throughout the cycle.”
Democrat operatives tried to make Harris look cool by hitching her wagon to pop star Charli XCX’s “brat” trend that took over social media last summer.
“Influencers flooded the web with neon-matcha green pro-Harris videos set to Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ album,” according to the bombshell report. Fawning journalists claimed these videos showed Harris was somehow part of the “brat” movement – as if a 59-year-old career politician could ever be considered “brat” – whatever that means.
Millions spent on content nobody watched
Despite dumping millions into this fake social media campaign, the results were embarrassingly ineffective.
Way to Win directly funded a series of YouTube interview-style talk shows called Watering Hole Media to boost Harris’ support among black men. One program called “Tap In” featured discussions about how Harris supposedly represented a continuation of radical black politics.
The reception was pathetic.
“Despite the well-funded efforts, few tuned in. The seven video programs produced at the DNC collectively garnered fewer than 1,000 views. One video had fewer than 40 viewers,” RealClearInvestigations revealed.
The group also funded comedian Ilana Glazer for a series of election videos called “Microdosing Democracy,” in which she half-heartedly endorsed Harris while smoking marijuana. Another funded series called “Gaydar” featured interviews quizzing people on the streets of New York City about gay culture trivia with little election-related content.
In perhaps the most ridiculous example, Way to Win paid for a caravan with an inflatable IUD contraceptive device to travel to Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Raleigh, St. Louis, and other locations to promote the false claim that Trump would ban contraceptives.
Democrats failed to connect with voters
Despite the $9.1 million spent on trying to make Harris appear cool and relatable, the effort failed spectacularly. Way to Win’s internal memo after the election tried to spin the failure by claiming: “Had more Americans gotten their media from Instagram and TikTok, Kamala Harris would be the next President of the United States.”
What they missed was that voters cared more about actual policy issues than manufactured social media hype.
The Harris campaign and supporting organizations spent over $1.5 billion in the last months of the campaign. Much of that money went to consultants and media advertising with questionable results.
Even Alex Cooper, who hosted Harris for an interview on her Call Her Daddy podcast, was baffled by the campaign spending $100,000 on a temporary studio set that she described as “cardboard” and “wasn’t that nice.”
Democrat strategist Mike Mikus in Pennsylvania observed, “Sometimes in Presidential campaigns, there are times when there aren’t any cost controls. The biggest question is whether they had any empirical evidence that this TikTok messaging would work.”
The answer appears to be a resounding no.
The youth vote, Latinos, and black men swung significantly to Donald Trump in 2024, upending decades of voting patterns and proving that the Democrats’ expensive social media strategy failed to connect with actual voters.
The Way to Win spokesperson tried to put a positive spin on the disaster, telling RealClearInvestigations: “Our 2024 creator program reached key audiences with nearly a billion views, but there’s more to do, and we’re applying lessons from last cycle.”
The American people rejected the Democrats’ fake enthusiasm and empty messaging, choosing instead a candidate who spoke to their concerns about the economy, border security, and America’s standing in the world.
