President Joe Biden joined in February, then former President Donald Trump in June. Vice President Kamala Harris signed up in July, followed by JD Vance and Tim Walz. On Wednesday, Pete Buttigieg joined them.
Politicians are continuing to flock to TikTok, as Republicans and Democrats jockey for the attention of younger voters in what appears for now to be a tight election. Buttigieg launched his account just hours before he spoke at the Democratic National Convention. The former South Bend, Indiana, mayor describes himself in his bio as “dad, husband, veteran, public servant, Midwestern.”
“You might recognize me from Fox News,” he joked in his first video, which broke 1 million views in six hours. “Now, I’m on TikTok, obviously.”
Over recent years, TikTok has increasingly become a source of political information for young people, with some news and politics influencers growing massive followings on the app. Users have also turned to the platform to find real-time updates from citizen journalists documenting everything from protests to natural disasters to conflict zones on the ground.
So far, the Trump and Harris campaigns (as well as Biden’s, before he dropped out of the race) have been unabashed about using it as a means of engaging with young voters through trending topics, music and memes.
Minnesota governor and Harris’ running mate Tim Walz joined the platform last week, kicking off his TikTok campaign with a dad joke. He has since gained 1.2 million followers.
“Hey everybody, Tim here with Scout at the dog park along the Mississippi, doing our first entry into TikTok,” Walz said in a video featuring his family dog, who has become a fan-favorite political pet online. “Or as he and I say, ‘TimTok.’ Right, Scout?”
Politicians’ embrace of TikTok also comes at a time when the U.S. government is embroiled in a tumultuous legal battle with the platform.
Biden signed a law to ban TikTok nationwide unless it is sold by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, prompting the platform to sue the federal government.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have long been vocal about their concerns over TikTok as a potential national security threat due to its China-based parent company ByteDance. But in recent months, major political players have continued to set up their own profiles on the platform.
A spokesperson for TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last year, Biden’s campaign had said he wouldn’t create a TikTok account. But the president joined the app in February, just months after signing a bill that could ban TikTok.
And after Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee in July, her campaign account @kamalahq — converted from @bidenhq — immediately found viral success on TikTok amid a flurry of organic Harris-themed memes online.
A few days later, Harris also launched her personal TikTok account, which has since gained more than 4.6 million followers.
Over the past month, Harris’ campaign account has accrued millions of views aligning itself with CharliXCX’s “brat summer”, taking advantage of trending TikTok lingo and, overall, not taking itself too seriously.
On her personal account, Harris has posted about everything from her visit to RuPaul’s Drag Race “Werk Room” to her call with Walz asking him to join her ticket.
A Harris campaign official said in a statement: “As the VP has said before, we don’t want to ban TikTok. We would just like to see a change in ownership.”
Efforts to combat the popular video-sharing app have persisted through multiple presidential administrations. When in office, former President Donald Trump issued an executive order in 2020 that would have banned TikTok had it not been halted in court.
But the GOP nominee has appeared to flip-flop on his stance over the years. Earlier this year, he made comments seemingly reversing his position.
Since joining TikTok, Trump has built a following of more than 10.5 million. He recently posted a clip of himself saying, “I’m gonna save TikTok.”
His running mate, Vance, joined the TikTok bandwagon in August, gaining over 439,000 followers. He’s used the platform to share videos from his time on the campaign trail.
Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
If it goes through, the looming ban could take years to go into effect, with the earliest possible start being early next year, meaning TikTok is at least here to stay for the duration of the 2024 election.
Meanwhile, TikTok remains banned on government-owned devices on the federal level as well as in dozens of states, and lawmakers have continued to be vocal in their support of the bipartisan legislation to force a TikTok sale.
Democrats and Republicans have continued to court digital creators — including TikTok influencers — as they campaign for the youth vote.
The Republican National Convention last month hosted dozens of influencers, and more than 200 content creators received credentials for this week’s Democratic National Convention.
The White House also hosted 100 creators earlier this month at its first-ever Creator Economy Conference, where it engaged with influencers about issues facing the booming content creation industry.
