Joe Biden’s bid to woo Gen Z voters by joining TikTok appears to be failing, with young platform users slamming the president for failing Palestinians, as six-in-ten young adults say they aren’t sure if they’ll vote in November.
Biden’s campaign team debuted the ‘@bidenhq’ account earlier this month, captioning its first video ‘lol hey guys’ and using the ‘Dark Brandon’ meme of the president with red glowing eyes to appeal to younger users.
The reaction has been lackluster. The account has only attracted 160,000 followers, and users have bombarded the Democratic president with posts slamming his handling of Israel’s ongoing military assault on Gaza.
Meanwhile, new polling by Axios-Generation Lab shows that fully 58 percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 34 — covering Gen Z adults and younger millennials — aren’t sure if they’ll even vote in November.
TikTok creator Uduak Nkanga says the Democrats’ message does not resonate with younger voters in 2024
The TikTok ‘@bidenhq’ account uses the ‘Dark Brandon’ meme of the president with red glowing eyes, to mock right-wing conspiracy theorists
That’s vital for Biden, who needs younger voters to turn out and repeat the formula that helped him in 2020 defeat former president Donald Trump, a Republican, in the expected rematch in November.
Biden’s team on Sunday released a TikTok post criticizing Trump. Few viewers reacted to the content, instead focussing on Biden’s failure to deter Israel from expanding its ground offensive in the southern city of Rafah.
‘MY EYES ARE ON RRRRAAAAFAAAAAH,’ posted one user.
Another wrote: ‘Hand of Raaaafaaaaaah’ and urged the president to ‘RESIGN.’
Young TikTokers have also posted their own videos criticizing Biden for being too pro-Israel and other concerns, such as not living up to his promises to forgive student loan debts.
‘If you think Georgia is going to show up for Biden the way they did in 2020, you’re sleeping under a rock,’ posted TikTok creator Uduak Nkanga.
‘This whole concept of gaslighting people into voting for Biden cos he’s better than Trump, it’s far gone.’
TikTok pundit Drew Parker slammed the Democrats for an election choice that was ‘2020 all over again.’
TikTokers have plastered Joe Biden’s account with calls to save Palestinians from Israel’s military offensive
Fully 58 percent of younger voters are not sure if they will vote in November
‘Y’all had two f*****g years to figure out a candidate to go up against Trump, and you’re still landing on Biden.’
Those users expressed a sense of fatigue with Biden and political partisanship that could impact the outcome in November.
According to Axios pollsters, younger voters are ‘stuck in a political Groundhog Day.’
Those who became first eligible to vote in 2016 have only ever seen three viable candidates on their presidential ballots — Biden, Trump, and the 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
The nationwide survey of more than 1,000 young adult voters earlier this month found that fully 58 percent were not sure whether they would vote in November.
That included 30 percent who said that there was ‘no chance’ or that they would ‘probably not’ vote.
Only 42 percent of respondents said they would definitely cast a ballot.
When asked what issue mattered most to them, 39 percent said the economy was front and center, making it the leading response. Others cited abortion, climate change, guns, student debt and immigration.
Biden’s 2024 campaign aims to rekindle the record high turnout from young people that helped lift him to victory in the last election.
TikTok pundit Drew Parker slammed the Democrats for an election that was ‘2020 all over again.’
Nearly four-in-ten younger voters cited the economy as a top concern this election year
Around 50 percent of that bloc voted in 2020, according to Tufts University research.
Among them, nearly two thirds of voters between the ages of 18 to 24 cast ballots for the Democratic president.
Most worryingly for the Biden 2024 team, some surveys have even found the president is trailing Trump among younger voters.
Biden’s embrace of TikTok was controversial from the outset, as the app is banned on most US government devices over security concerns.
The president’s TikTok account is not run by Biden himself, but by campaign staffers.
The president signed legislation in 2022 blocking most federal government devices from using TikTok. Several states have also adopted similar measures.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle want the app, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance — to be banned in the US over concerns that Beijing can access user data.
Still, it remains popular with young Americans.
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