No, Kamala Harris did not lose because of social media nor because Donald Trump did a few podcast interviews during the week before the election.

In terms of the popular vote, the result of the U.S. presidential election is not a landslide, but it’s clear. If you lose an election 48% to 50%, it’s not a matter of tactics. Rather, there was a fundamental disconnect between political demand and offer.

In the case of Harris, the albatross around her neck was that Democrats got blamed for inflation, the inaction on the border during the first three years of the term, and wokeness. Maybe she could have prevailed with one of these issues, but not three.

With respect to new and social media, I distinctively remember several praising articles about how Democrats treated and fed podcasters during the convention. The clip of Donald Trump claiming that immigrants are eating the pets went viral and dominated social media for days after the debate. Teenagers were dancing and ridiculing Trump’s statement. In fact, I think that one could even argue the exact other way around, that is, if social media were to decide elections, Kamala Harris would be president-elect now.

Be that as it may, I have noticed that the people who speak enthusiastically about the wonders they can supposedly do online to win elections are almost exclusively people who earn their living with social media. All academic studies I have seen paint a far more sober picture.

And yet, the siren’s song is extremely seducing for politicians and journalists alike and I have spent quite some time thinking about why it has so much appeal. To begin with, even the strong Odysseus had to handcuff and blindfold himself in order to be able to pass by the siren without giving in to their song.

Journalists simply love the story of the new and hidden forces deciding elections online. As for the politicians, I have concluded that it has a lot to do with many of them looking for instant gratification and confirmation. The likes and retweets are highly addictive. And as has been said, logic makes people think, emotions make people act.

That said, I’m not advising not to use social media. It’s of course nowadays part of almost all campaigns. The less votes you need in order to win, in other words, the more you are a niche instead of a mass product, the bigger a role social media will probably play in your campaign. It’s also better suited for a mobilization rather than a persuasion strategy.

But I would strongly urge not to overestimate its impact. And if anything, it must grow organically. Bought traffic is cheap because it’s mostly useless.

And I would also like to caution you to blindly trust what looks like objective analytics. You can either analyze a lot of small things and get lost in the data. Or, you can choose to see the big picture. And it’s usually big, bold decisions that decide elections.

PS: For further information on this topic and to continue the conversation, please check out two videos on this topic on my YouTube channel by clicking here and here.