Podcasts proved to be a boon for Trump
Trump dominated among voters who mainly got their election information through podcasts
New data from a battleground state election survey funded by Way to Win and conducted by David Binder Research shows that the media diet of voters strongly correlated to their vote choice, shining a light on where Democrats need to focus in order to make up ground in today’s fractured media environment. And while some bright spots exist for Democrats, they clearly have a lot of work to do in the emerging podcast ecosystem.
The survey showed that voters who mainly got information about the election through newspapers favored Vice President Kamala Harris by 56 points, 77% - 21%; but the polar opposite was true of podcasts, where Donald Trump won 77% of those who primarily got their election information through podcasts with just 22% of the cohort backing Harris.
Social media was more of a mixed bag, with Democrats dominating some spaces while Republicans thrived elsewhere. Battleground state voters who said they got their election news primarily from TikTok voted for Harris 62% to 36% over Trump—a 24-point advantage. But Trump won YouTube news consumers 51% - 46%. The survey tested other social media but did not get statistically sound samples.
The findings jibe with surveys conducted by other outfits, but offer new insights about the influential role of podcasts and social media in a rapidly evolving political landscape.
The Way to Win Battleground State Survey of 2450 total voters (including oversamples of Latino, Black and AAPI voters) in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin was conducted by David Binder Research from October 28th to November 7th, in English and Spanish by phone, cell and landline and online recruited by text from voter files. Full findings will be released in the coming weeks.
Entering into the 2024 cycle, Way to Win sought to be an influential force in the social media landscape. We developed a social media messaging program in conjunction with Gutsy Media and ASO Communications called AMPLIFY, and we prioritized cultivating influencers on both TikTok and Instagram in order to flood the zone with messaging that emphasized this election as a choice about our freedoms, families and futures. Across TikTok and Instagram, the AMPLIFY program generated over 415 million views on content that prioritized Way to Win messaging on cost of living and reproductive freedom with a strong anti-Trump/Project 2025 contrast.
But Democrats must compete in more spaces, and the road map to doing so already exists. At the outset of 2024, Republicans dominated TikTok and Instagram before Democrats started building larger presences on the platforms. A similar emphasis must now be put into competing on podcasts, Youtube, X, and reddit—all platforms that have served as breeding grounds for conservatism, especially among young men.
The bottom line is, Democrats proved to be more competitive on the platforms where they played. But it wasn’t enough. Now is the time to start seeding far more culture-first and entertainment-first podcasts and creators.
Note: For more discussion of how Democrats can penetrate the media landscape, listen to the latest episode of our new podcast: Charting the Way Forward. It features an actual TikTok success story!