International
Elections in the United States: the battle between Harris and Trump is also fought on TikTok
Reach as many young people as possible, publish content that goes viral or ridicule the opponent with memes. These are some of the ingredients that make up the strategy of the candidates for the presidency of the United States, the Democrat Kamala Harris and the Republican Donald Trump, who also compete to mobilize the votes of Generation Z through TikTok.
The current vice president of the country and the former president accumulate among the two more than 10 million followers on the Chinese social network, an effective electoral tool to capture the young vote on November 5 … Despite the demands and attempts to close the platform in the United States for considering that it represents a “threat” to national security and seriously affect the mental health of minors.
It is no coincidence that Trump and Kamala Harris have chosen this platform to reach the youngest: according to a study by the Pew Research Center, more and more Americans under the age of 30 receive news through TikTok and 52% of the users of the social network use it to get information.
In addition, it is estimated that more than 40 million young Americans of Generation Z (18 to 27 years old in 2024) will be able to vote in these elections.
In fact, the vote of this age group can be decisive in states such as Michigan, where the youth voter turnout rate was one of the highest in the country in 2022 and where they have one of the highest young voter registration rates in the United States.
What is your strategy? Who is behind their profiles?
Both aspirants compete with a personal profile (@kamalaharris, @realdonaldtrump) full of cuts and public appearances, to which they add another account focused on supporting the party’s electoral campaign (@teamtrump, @kamalahq) and based on the cultural language of the internet and where they ‘shot’ ingenious viral memes.
These accounts are run by a young team that plays with TikTok content and music trends to “attack” or ridicule their opponent and get their video to reach millions of people through humor.
For example, a basic image of dolphins with a background of color and fantasy with the message “Donald Trump’s 2025 project is a threat to our democracy” – accompanied by a Clean Bandit song, ‘Symphony’ -, obtained more than nine million views and more than 7,000 comments on @kamalahq’s profile.
Two days later, Donald Trump’s social media team responded by replicating the meme on his campaign profile with the following text: “Vote for Trump unless you want to be recruited to fight in World War III.” Result? Eight million views on @teamtrump’s profile.
In addition to memes, the candidates for the White House have used viral music on more than one occasion for their videos in rallies and have even created sounds from statements by their opponent. All this allows them to upload content with a humorous tone that can become a trend while ridiculing the rival.
Content creators enter campaign
In addition to memes and cuts with a humorous tone, both have chosen to involve content creators, influencers and celebrities in their campaigns to reach those people who do not consume politics regularly on TikTok and to whom, therefore, the application in principle does not recommend this type of video due to its hyper-personalized algorithm.
Trump used this strategy from the beginning on his personal account, which he used to promote his appearances in interviews and channels with streamers, YouTubers and tiktokers.
One of the first videos he uploaded to his profile was with the American content creator and boxer Logan Paul to promote their meeting on Paul’s YouTube channel. The promotional video of only six seconds was viewed by more than 160 million people.
Growth of your accounts in networks
Likewise, Donald Trump published another video on his profile two months ago dancing with American video game streamer Adin Ross, to celebrate the “success” of his video in ‘streaming’ with more than 2 million views on Ross’s YouTube channel.
Neither Paul nor Ross usually upload political content on their profiles, but they did publish their meetings with the former president and that content traveled to the mobile of millions of users on networks.
Harris, for his part, interviewed various content creators at the Democratic National Convention held in August in Chicago in order to appear on the profiles of influential people in cosmetics, lifestyle or humor, all of them far from politics, as was the case with @queencitytrends, with more than three million followers on TikTok.
In addition, Kamala Harris also opted for a well-known American comedy podcast called ‘CallHerDaddy’ with content creator Alexandra Cooper.
According to the social media analysis and statistics platform Social Blade, these strategies have had a positive impact on both the campaign accounts and the personal accounts of both candidates. For example, the vice president has gained more than 300,000 followers and the former president more than a million in the last 30 days on the campaign profiles of @teamtrump and @kamalahq.
The tightest elections of the last century
However, it remains to be seen whether this success on the social network translates into votes from Generation Z in the United States elections on November 5.
According to the latest forecast of the FiveThiryEight portal based on the average of surveys published nationally and in key states, Trump achieves a slight advantage over Harris and has a 52% chance of winning.
Two weeks ago, the forecast of the same portal gave Harris a 58% chance of defeating Trump in one of the tightest and tightest elections of the last century in the United States.
International
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
A 65-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested at a border checkpoint in Croatia after attempting to enter the country in his car with a deceased woman sitting as a passenger, police announced on Tuesday.
The man was detained in a routine check in late November in Gunja, a border area separating Bosnia from Croatia, the police told AFP. Suspicious because they saw “no consciousness or movement” from the passenger, Croatian officers called a doctor, who confirmed the death of the 83-year-old woman, also Austrian, according to her identification.
The woman’s relationship to the suspect is unknown. She had died in Bosnia, and the man intended to repatriate her body to Austria to “avoid the formalities related to transporting a corpse,” according to the police. Croatian media reported that the man was her legal guardian.
Once her death was confirmed, a funeral service took charge of the body.
International
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Colombian authorities arrested two nationals accused of the illegal trafficking of migrants to the United States and of endangering lives due to the disappearance of a boat with 40 people aboard, U.S. Department of Justice officials reported on Tuesday.
Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera Orjuela, 52, and Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 40, both Colombian citizens, were arrested on December 13 in Colombia at the request of the United States for their alleged involvement in a “transnational human trafficking operation,” the department said in a statement.
According to the charges, the detainees were transporting migrants to San Andrés Island in the Caribbean, where they would then be taken by boat to Nicaragua. The goal was to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico.
The accused are said to have advised the migrants on how to reach San Andrés Island, where they personally received them, arranged accommodations, and “took them to the boats that transported them to Nicaragua so they could enter the United States illegally,” the statement reads.
“These defendants put several migrants on the boat that disappeared off the coast of Nicaragua in 2023,” said Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as cited in the statement.
Both men are “directly and personally responsible for the illicit trafficking of migrants on that vessel,” according to the indictment dated October 23.
International
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
Two soldiers were killed and five others were injured by the explosion of homemade landmines planted by a criminal group in a mountainous area of the Mexican state of Michoacán (west), the Secretary of Defense reported on Tuesday.
The attack occurred on Monday morning in the municipality of Cotija, a border area between Michoacán and the state of Jalisco, when the military was conducting a reconnaissance mission after receiving information about an armed camp in the area, explained Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla.
“At that moment, an improvised explosive device detonated. Unfortunately, two soldiers lost their lives, and five others were injured,” the military leader detailed. The affected soldiers were airlifted to hospitals in the region by a military helicopter, while the rest of the team continued with the reconnaissance of the area.
Trevilla stated that before the explosion, the military unit had located the dismembered bodies of three people, and upon continuing the mission, they confirmed the camp was abandoned.
Asked about the individuals responsible for placing the explosives, the general suggested they could be criminals linked to the local group Cárteles Unidos, which operates in Michoacán and uses these tactics in their territorial dispute with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country.
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