Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Kamala Harris pick gave Biden's campaign huge surge of enthusiasm, data shows

Social media interactions for the Biden campaign increased over 35% following announcement of Harris as presumptive VP nominee

By Julia Musto | Fox News

The appointment of California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris to presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden's 2020 presidential ticket provided the former vice president with the largest surge of online enthusiasm he's seen over the course of his campaign, according to new data.

Axios on Tuesday reported on new data, provided exclusively to the outlet by the predictive media intelligence site NewsWhip, and it showed that following the announcement of the addition of Harris, stories about Biden's candidacy received 64 million interactions on social media. Or, to a level that is 35% higher than the biggest voter engagement the campaign has witnessed thus far, it reported.
There were 55 million recorded interactions on stories about Harris -- a number higher than Biden had in any other week, according to NewsWhip's data to Axios.

Additionally, Biden's second-most engaged tweet of his 2020 campaign was his report of Harris' veepstakes win last Tuesday with over 1.02 million engagements, according to KeyHole.

Former Vice President Joe Biden talks with Senator Kamala Harris after the conclusion of the 2020 Democratic U.S. presidential debate in Houston, Texas, U.S., September 12, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake - HP1EF9D08FC65

Excitement over Harris could be a key factor for voters, according to the report.

Harris is notably the first Black and Indian American woman to be on a major-party ticket.

And with her record as a former prosecutor, attorney general and senator, Axios reported that Harris could help to hook voters interested in policy issues such as police reform, racial inequality and women's' rights.

The virtual Democratic National Convention (DNC) -- which commenced on Monday -- comes following months of Black Lives Matter protests. By spearheading these issues, Harris could potentially revive Black voter turnout -- which dropped 6% from 2012 to 2016, according to the report.
Video

With Harris's 3.3 million Instagram followers and loyal "#KHive," Harris generated more social media interaction than any other top veep contender, the data showed.
According to the Pew Research Center, Black social media users tend to be far more civically engaged online than White social media users, and they are more than twice as likely to say they have used a hashtag related to a political or social issue in the past mont

No comments: