A recent study has revealed that Americans who engaged with news influencers during the presidential campaign were more likely to encounter positive content about Donald Trump compared to Kamala Harris. The research conducted by the Pew Research Center indicates that while influencers discussed both candidates on social media at a similar frequency, Trump’s mentions were more abundant and typically carried a favorable tone.
According to Pew, about 20% of the U.S. population regularly receives news from influencers, which include podcasters and commentators, with approximately two-thirds believing it enhances their understanding of current events. The analysis involved over 150,000 posts from nearly 500 influencers, all of whom comment on current affairs and boast at least 100,000 followers across platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube.
During the campaign, Trump actively engaged with this youth-focused demographic, even participating in a podcast with Joe Rogan, a well-known influencer, while Harris did not appear on that platform. The study found that an equal 42% of the influencers were critical of either candidate, yet Trump prevailed in the volume of discussion. His supporters created more posts, leading to a situation where, on the platform X, there were twice as many critical posts about Harris than positive ones, whereas comments about Trump were more evenly distributed between critical and favorable.
X emerged as the primary platform for political influencers, with 79% of political postings originating from there. Of the influencers active on X, 48% identified as right-leaning, while 28% described themselves as more liberal. Right-leaning influencers averaged 183 posts per week, in contrast to the 72 posts per week from their liberal counterparts, according to Pew’s findings.
