VP Viewership Increases Following Debate

Following the recent VP debate, weekly YouTube views on content about the candidates skyrocketed by 204%. That said, viewership following the debate did not come close to the views following Walz’s nomination in August which garnered 110M more YouTube views.

Different Matchup, More Engagement

Engagement with articles featuring Donald Trump and Kamala Harris peaked the day after their first debate. Trump racked up 1.52 million engaged hours and Harris was close behind with 1.45M. Engagement with both candidates increased more than 170% from the day before, and eclipsed the previous debates’ high of 1.3M.

ABC’s Debate Livestream Leads YouTube Coverage

The most viewed YouTube video about the September 10th presidential debate within the first 48 hours was ABC's live debate coverage, which garnered 13.2 million views and 149k engagements.

Walz Starts Slow, but Ends Up on Top

When it first became apparent that Kamala Harris would need a new running mate, Josh Shapiro and Mark Kelly received much more engaged time than Tim Walz. Over the ensuing weeks, however, Walz closed the gap, and on the day of his official announcement, readers spent 645,000 engaged hours with articles about him.

TikTok Top Platform for Walz

Prior to President Biden’s withdrawal from the race, Tim Walz had very little traction on social media. When he entered the VP conversation, however, daily engagement on multiple platforms increased sharply. On TikTok, for example, the Minnesota governor saw 1.5 million engagements on August 7th alone. 

Harris Enters Race, Surges on TikTok

Since Joe Biden's decision to step down and endorse Kamala Harris, engagement with the VP on TikTok has surged. Her 27 million engagements in the last week total more than the rest of the year combined.

Pressure Builds on Biden to Step Down 

Following the US presidential debate, many media publishers and Americans questioned Biden’s ability to win the race. The discussion generated 250 million YouTube views in the 3 weeks following. Viewership peaked on July 9th, after Biden’s NATO address.

Trump Assassination Attempt on a Global Stage

The media publisher posting the most YouTube content about the assassination attempt is Sky News Australia. Out of the top ten publishers, seven are Indian and only two are American: CBS News and Forbes Breaking News.

Site Pageviews About Trump Skyrocket

The day before the attempted assassination on Trump, pageviews about the former president were around 40 million with 1 million engaged hours. The day after the shooting, pageviews soared by 5x to 220 million, while engaged time grew by 3x.

US Presidential Debate Wins for Best Comedy

Tubular’s new Video Trends feature indicates that “comedy” and “humor” were among the fastest growing trends that sprung off the June 27th debate, totaling +150 YouTube videos for a combined +20 million views in 7 days.

Views Surge After US Presidential Debate

YouTube views on Trump increased by 160% the week of the debate while Biden views surged by 186%. 

Alternate Candidates’ Post-Debate Bump

While Trump and Biden still dominated our attention in the hours after the debate, the number of articles about Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. saw an increase that began after 4am EST on June 28. Average engagement with these articles also jumped from about 25 seconds to more than 60 seconds the day after the debate. 

Mexico Elects Its First Female President

TikTok amassed 75% of overall viewership about the 2024 Mexican election from June 2023 to June 2024. While Claudia Sheinbaum won in the polls, Gálvez won on social. From April 1, 2024 to June 14, #XochitlGalvez garnered 3.47 billion views — 80% more than #ClaudiaSheinbaum.

Modi's Engagement Pays Off at Polls

From January through May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi averaged more than 4x the engagement of Rahul Gandhi, the representative of the opposition Congress party. After declaring victory on June 4, Modi’s engagement soared to 15x his previous daily averaged engaged hours.

Engagement with Trump Verdict 

On May 30th, about 15 minutes after the guilty verdict was read, engagement with Trump-related content soared to a peak of 12,265,867 seconds per minute, and didn't return to pre-verdict levels until June 1.

Trump Hush Money Trial Views Surge

Trump’s hush money trial drew 1.1 billion views on YouTube from Apr. 1 – Jun. 3. On TikTok, top hashtags around this topic included #votetrump and #funnymoments. MSNBC's most viewed TikTok video featured Robert De Niro criticizing Trump to reporters.

Topics Engaging the Swing States

Climate change remains the most popular topic in all 7 swing states we’re watching, but when we look closer at Pennsylvania, we see that articles related to Israel/Palestine are averaging the third-most engaged hours.

Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life 

While pro-choice and pro-life content both had a similar audience overlap with abortion content throughout the year, pro-life content became much more prominent in March and April.

Trump’s Arrest Tops the TikTok Charts

The #1 most watched and engaged TikTok video about the US Presidential Elections and swing state Georgia is a repurposed television clip posted by CBS Evening News discussing Trump’s surrender at the Fulton County Jail.

Arizona Abortion Ban 

From April 8–14th, YouTube coverage about the abortion ban in Arizona got nearly 14 million views in a single week. The most watched video was a clip from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert discussing the issue, which won 1.7 million YouTube views in just 3 days. 

Trump’s Trial Drives TikTok Views

In April 2024, YouTube viewership about Trump’s Criminal Trial climbed to over 310 million. On TikTok, the most watched video was posted by MSNBC and won 6.6 million views in 7 days. The video features a dismissed juror from his trial who remarked “He looks less orange”.

RFK Jr. Leans into TikTok 

While neither Trump nor Biden are on TikTok, RFK Jr. has posted more than 160 videos on the platform in 2024, accumulating 97.9 million views and 16 million engagements. RFK's monthly TikTok views surged by 258% from January to March.

Catch up on previous election coverage:

Navigating the digital media maze of the 2024 US presidential election

Going deeper on the topics driving the 2024 US presidential election

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• Las viñetas son geniales
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• convertir visitantes en leads.

Algo contundente

Dile más al lector

El encabezado y su respectivo resumen nos dicen más sobre lo que ofreces y el encabezado del formulario cierra el negocio. Aquí puedes explicar por qué tu oferta es tan buena que merece la pena rellenar un formulario.

Recuerda:

• Las viñetas son geniales
• para mostrar los beneficios y
• convertir visitantes en leads.