Our next class meeting will be a debrief on the 2020 campaign, so I want you to offer your take on the following topics. First, what forms of campaign communication do you think were most effective for each candidate? And which strategies did not work/were not effective? Second, how would you assess the media coverage of the election results, both from Election Night and the following days? Finally, how would you assess voters' reactions, based on either your own friends/family and/or what people are posting on social media? Refer to at least two previous class readings and one outside source to support your response.
Brianna Mejia 1/2
ReplyDeleteAfter the 2020 election has concluded, I think that it is important to review what candidates did well and what they could have improved on. To begin, I think that Donald Trump was extremely successful in his campaign advertising. According to “Political Campaign Communication” By Denton Et. Al ads that attack the other candidate are extremely effective in painting a candidate in a bad light. Trump’s attacks on Hunter Biden as well as the mental fitness of “Sleepy Joe” pulled a lot of voters towards Trump’s side. However, I think that he was not effective in targeting large voting blocks that were important to this election, which included gen z, African Americans, suburban residents, Hispanic Americans, and women. It seems like he did not put a lot of effort into trying to target these groups which ultimately cost him the election.
Joe Biden did a good job of conveying that he took the coronavirus seriously. He did this with his drive-in rallies but also showed how careful he and the democrats were at the democratic national convention. According to the article “The Democrats Are Downsizing Their Convention to Almost Nothing", the democrats severely reduced the size of the convention over coronavirus concerns which proved to voters that Biden and the democrats are more cautious. However, I think that Biden could have excelled more in the debates. He is obviously not a volatile individual who attacks, but I think that Trump outshined him throughout the debates. This is exemplified by the article “More Americans Predict Trump Will Win the Presidential Debates than Biden" which predicted that Trump would beat out Biden before seen seeing the two debate.
Election coverage by the media was spotty and confusing. Since most of them get their information from different places, they have different electoral numbers and had some states called while other platforms didn’t. The most confusing part was that they did not tell you where they got their information from and why they had not called states while others had. This caused a lot of confusion and I saw it on Twitter. After Biden was announced a winner, I think that Fox News was a lot more cautious because they know of the legal challenges that are coming.
Brianna Mejia 2/2
DeleteI think that this was a huge sigh of relief for a lot of people. As you can see by the celebration is almost every major city, people are excited. Not only that, but according to The Hill article “Fireworks in London, Edinburgh as Biden win celebrated abroad”, the whole world was celebrating Biden’s win. This included places like Paris, London, and Germany. I have seen quotes like “I can finally be proud to be an American again” or “The flag is no longer a symbol of hate”. Social media is filled with celebratory messages and for every 30 or so Biden messages, I see a Trump message. This shows how much Gen z showed up for Biden.
Sources
Denton, Robert E., Jr.. Political Campaign Communication (Communication, Media, and Politics) (p. 129). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Epstein, Reid J. and Lisa Lerer. "The Democrats Are Downsizing Their Convention to Almost Nothing," New York Times 17 July 2020.
Groppe, Maureen and Sarah Elbeshbishi, "More Americans Predict Trump Will Win the Presidential Debates than Biden," USA Today 6 Sept. 2020.
Seipel, B. (2020, November 08). Fireworks in London, Edinburgh as Biden win celebrated abroad. Retrieved November 08, 2020, from https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/524962-fireworks-in-london-edinburgh-as-biden-win-celebrated-abroad
Lille Gaeta
ReplyDeleteWith the 2020 election finally over, it’s important to do a post-election debrief about both candidates. One form of campaign communication that was most effective for the Trump campaign was his Attack ads. Throughout his campaign, he attempted to discredit Biden through these ads, and create doubt or fear about a Biden presidency (Denton et. Al. 125). Trump’s followers fed into that enough to get them to the polls on election. What ended up backfiring for Trump was trying to discredit early voting. A record amount of people voted early in this election. Trump also did not spend enough time maintaining communication with the voting blocs that helped him win in 2016, like suburban white women.
For Biden, his social media strategy was incredibly effective. With COVID, the Biden campaign shifted a lot of their campaign virtually compared to the Trump campaign, and it ended up working in the campaign’s benefit. To start, the campaign had already been at somewhat of a digital disadvantage because Biden has less followers than Trump (Heilweil). The campaign had developed an influencer strategy that targeted subgroups within different swing states. Biden was able to clinch victories in several swing states, like Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania, and it very well could have been in part to online strategies put forth by the campaign like this one.
The media coverage of the results varied from news outlet to news outlet. Different channels were showing different numbers from election day until we received the results yesterday. Generally, it was just confusing. People didn’t know what to believe and with the distrust in the media nowadays, to some people, it makes it even harder to trust what you’re reading. People rely on news, and a “Gallup/Knight study found large majorities of Americans say that the media is critical to our democracy and want journalists to provide fair news reports and hold leaders accountable. But news organizations cannot do so if they do not have the people’s trust — and among a majority of Republicans and independents at least, they have lost that trust” (Thiessen). This rang true with many Americans this election. People were- and still are- hesitant of everything the media said about the election. The lack of trust in the media was reflected in this year’s election coverage.
Voter’s reactions have been overwhelmingly positive and hopeful. Social media is flooded with messages of relief and happiness. I haven’t seen as much disappointment that Trump lost compared to happiness that Biden won. However, that is most likely due to the fact that the majority of the people I know and follow on social media were never Trump supporters. Since finding out the results yesterday, I think I’ve seen less than 10 posts that express disappoint in Trump losing, compared to the probably over 100 I’ve seen expressing happiness that Biden one. I have also seen a lot of celebration that we not only have the first female Vice President, but the fact that the first female Vice President is a woman of color. The response to Harris being in the office has been incredibly uplifting and inspiring.
Lille Gaeta
DeleteSources
Denton, Robert E., et al. Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices. Rowman & Littlefield, 2020.
Heilweil, Rebecca. “Inside the Biden Campaign's Surprising Influencer Strategy.” Vox, Vox, 22 Sept. 2020, www.vox.com/recode/21429755/influencers-joe-biden-democrats-pacs- social-media-facebook-instagram-campaign.
Thiessen, Marc. “Opinion | The Media Is the Big Loser of the 2020 Election.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 5 Nov. 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/05/media-is-big-loser-2020-election/.
Erin Fennell
ReplyDeleteThis election was an interesting one by all means. Having the candidates that we did, along with the election being in the middle of a pandemic created a variety of issues. In terms of communication, Biden and his team used different platforms to reach a broader group of voters than Trump did. They used advertising strategies and placed them where they would get the attention of minority groups or other groups that Trump did not focus on. An example of this was when the democrats launched an English, Spanish and Creole advertising effort, aimed to get Haitian and Jamaican voters in Florida (Wang). This type of strategy and audience worked for Biden and I think it is this group that won him the election. Trump on the other hand stuck to traditional media coverage. Him and his massages controlled the media and social media. However, this wasn't always positive. There was always a ton of negative press that surrounded Trump, and I believe that conflict made it hard for people to support him. I also think Trump relied on his loyal following and did not put enough effort into gaining minority groups. As someone who doesn't look very hard for their political information, I never just happened upon anything positive when relating to minority groups from Trump's campaign, which does not make him look great compared to Biden's, who's entire campaign was pretty much run to gain those voters. This could also have to do with the negative narrative by the press surrounding Trump, making it hard to get his message out because the media was so focused on simply him.
The media for election night was in my opinion, confusing. As someone who isn't great with politics, watching the election I was having a hard time following the narration and was only able to pick up very specific parts. However, I think the media following election night was simple and well done. The CNN map of the state's change was very easy to follow and stay updated with (CNN Politics). Other than this, I did not really watch anything news related. It was my intention to not overwhelm myself with political news during those few days. I also think it is interesting how Donald Trump is reacting. An article by Politico says, “It just seems to be that if the name ‘Donald Trump’ is on the ballot, all bets are off when it comes to the polls being right” (Shepard). I think Trump filing lawsuits and claiming he did not lose is embarrassing, but also with this election not an insane reasoning. I have seen a lot of controversy on whether the outcome this election really reflects what people put on their ballots. Social media has been the same. I see people saying that he lost and denying it is crazy, as well as people agreeing with him. With the pandemic and mail in ballots I would say, we as a country, will just need to see how it plays out.
And in response to how my family and friends have reacted, I am very pleased and shocked how civil everyone has been. I know supporters for both sides, and it has been a very pleasant and easy transition from Trump to Biden as of now. I am very impressed with how the people I know reacted to this election.
Works Cited
CNN Politics. "PRESIDENTIAL RESULTS." CNN Politics, CNN News, 3 Nov. 2020, www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/president?iid=politics_election_national_map. Accessed 9 Nov. 2020.
Shepard, Steven. "The polling industry blows it again." Politico, Politico LLC, 6 Nov. 2020, www.politico.com/news/2020/11/06/polling-industry-blows-it-again-434591. Accessed 9 Nov. 2020.
Wang, Jenny. "Why Former VP Biden's Media Strategy is Working." PR News, 23 Oct. 2020, www.prnewsonline.com/media-strategy-Biden-Trump. Accessed 9 Nov. 2020.
Jailynn Caraballo
ReplyDeleteThere were many different forms of campaign communication throughout the end of this presidential election. The ones that I found most effective were on social media. Biden’s campaign did a phenomenal job at keeping his voters up to date on all of the counting of the ballots and of the status of the electoral votes. They did this mostly through Twitter but also a lot through Instagram. I appreciated these approaches because I really felt as though they were taking into account the young vote. As a 21-year-old, I find myself constantly on Twitter and Instagram and without even noticing, my feed quickly turned into Biden central. This is very important when talking about the civic engagement of the younger generations. “You could think of the Internet as a battleground state in its own…” (Time.com, 6 Aug. 2020). Trump’s campaign did an equally good job at making sure to stay up to date and timely on Twitter. Some campaign strategies I did not find very effective was the updating of both the Biden and Trump websites. After most American’s had already decided who to will vote for and had already voted, I am not sure how effective updating the websites would be. It would be really interesting to see what type of engagement each website got during this past week. I assume not a lot.
The media coverage was constant. It reminded me a lot of when Michael Jackson died and the only thing you could find online or on TV was some sort of coverage on him or his passing. There was no corner of the internet that wasn’t talking about the campaign and the number of electoral votes or ballot votes. After many days of waiting, on Saturday Biden passed the necessary 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. On this day I remember logging into Instagram and seeing it everywhere. There seemed to be a big mix of emotion, many people on my social media were even becoming very combative. There was a time where people were going on “blocking sprees” to try and block as many people from their social media who expressed opposing views. Even companies like Facebook decided to make sure their platform didn’t contribute to civil unrest (New York Times, 3 Sep. 2020). I saw many people that I personally know posting very nasty things and using very hurtful and oppressive language. Though I wanted to take a step back from social media, I found it very hard to because I wanted to stay informed. One thing I did find very empowering was the celebration outside of the white house when Biden’s win was announced. “Around noon, just after the election was called by news outlets, an impromptu parade broke out on the streets of the nation’s capital to celebrate Biden’s victory. A brass band perched on the back of a truck played upbeat jazz as people spilled out of homes, shops and restaurants in downtown D.C. to join the march” (The Washington Post, 8 Nov. 2020). As someone who studied in DC last semester, I wanted nothing more but to be there with all the crowds of people celebrating. Though there is a lot of more work to be done, as a woman of color I finally feel hope.
Works Cited:
DeleteAlter, Charlotte. “How Joe Biden, Democrats Plan to Win Back Internet in 2020.” Time. Time, August 6, 2020. https://time.com/5876600/joe-biden-internet-2020-election/.
Isaac, Mike. “Facebook Moves to Limit Election Chaos in November.” The New York Times. The New York Times, September 3, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/03/technology/facebook-election-chaos-november.html?campaign_id=60.
Marissa Lang, Rebecca Tan. “Impromptu Celebrations Pop up in Washington Following Biden Victory Announcement.” The Washington Post. WP Company, November 8, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-celebration-biden/2020/11/07/d8069040-211a-11eb-b532-05c751cd5dc2_story.html.
This presidential race was unlike any other, taking place in a time of division and unrest in our country, as well as a pandemic. Joe Biden’s win, in my opinion, was largely contributed to by his campaign’s social media efforts. The use of platforms, such as Twitter and Instagram, allowed him to reach young voters and boost turnout rates, despite being new to campaigning through social media and having less followers than Trump (Alter). The Biden campaign utilized social media masterfully, creating repostable content, sharing touching American stories, and connecting with the loyal young followers of influencers. Gaining support and encouraging action among young voters was extremely important in this close race. The youth vote secured Biden’s victories in crucial swing states, including Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. The margin of victory (148,000 votes) in Michigan was closed by the 194,000 young voters who cast their ballots for Biden (CIRCLE).
ReplyDeleteImpressively, Biden flipped five states. The support garnered from these typically red states could be partially attributed to the Biden campaign’s advertising efforts. He bought air time in 15 battleground states — 10 of which were won by Trump in 2016 and 5 won by Clinton (Cillizza). Perhaps he should have focused more on a smaller group of states, if he wanted to succeed in flipping a state like Florida or Texas. However, I think his advertising strategy was a safe move in such a tight race. It helped Biden hold onto blue swing states and flip enough red ones.
Trump’s votes were acquired more by traditional stump campaigning strategies and rallies. He personally addressed voters and visited many cities and towns, allowing him to garner support and create excitement leading up to Election Day. His personality captured the votes of many large voting blocs, including the majority of white males, citizens living in small or rural towns, and many religious Americans — especially Protestants and Mormons (NPR Staff). However, one of Trump’s biggest mistakes during this election was his overly-confident attitude. He wasn’t afraid to lose, which led his team to make some decisions that gave Biden an edge and lost swing voters. Trump cut back on ad spending in key battlegrounds, was rude and interruptive during the debates, and told his audience in Erie, PA that he had no plans to visit before COVID-19 struck (Rakich). Trump also discouraged his supporters from voting by mail, which could have lowered the turnout. Overall, he didn’t campaign with enough urgency, which is a mistake many incumbents have made.
Media coverage on Election Night and the days following was mostly speculative. News outlets didn’t want to call states until there was little doubt of the outcome. However, I believe the media acted responsibly by waiting to call states in order to avoid reporting inaccuracies. After 2016, news outlets owed it to their viewers to get the coverage right. From my observations, voters were grudgingly patient with the slower developments because they knew counting would take longer this year. Living in a suite full of women who voted for Biden, it was very nerve-wracking going to bed with many states leaning red and interesting to see some progress to blue over the next few days. When Biden was announced the projected winner, I was surprised by the positive reaction around the globe. I haven’t heard of this happening after any other election. On the other hand, I don’t think there has ever been such a serious accusation of cheating. Though the big Election Day has passed, I fear there is much more to happen before the Inauguration in January.
Alter, Charlotte. “How Joe Biden, Democrats Plan to Win Back the Internet in 2020.” Time, Time, 6 Aug. 2020, www.time.com/5876600/joe-biden-internet-2020-election/.
DeleteCenter for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). “Election Week 2020: Youth Turnout Higher in 2020 than 2016.” CIRCLE at Tufts, 4 Nov. 2020, www.circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/election-week-2020.
Cillizza, Chris. “Analysis: This Is the Widest Presidential Battleground in a Very Long Time.” CNN, Cable News Network, 31 Aug. 2020, www.cnn.com/2020/08/31/politics/2020-race-donald-trump-joe-biden-swing-states/index.html.
NPR Staff. Understanding The 2020 Electorate: AP VoteCast Survey. 3 Nov. 2020, www.npr.org/2020/11/03/929478378/understanding-the-2020-electorate-ap-votecast-survey.
Rakich, Nathaniel. “Trump Has Lost His Edge In TV Advertising.” FiveThirtyEight, FiveThirtyEight, 16 Sept. 2020, www.fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-has-lost-his-edge-in-tv-advertising/.
MATTHEW BRUIN
ReplyDeletePART ONE
With 2020 being the year full of unexpected nightmares, it wasn’t a surprise that the 2020 Presidential was going to follow suit. From voter fraud allegations, refusal to concede the election, to vote count problems and delays, the chaos that unfolds regardless of who will occupy the White House in 2021 was expected.
Starting out, when looking at both Joe Biden’s and Donald Trump’s communication strategies, there were clear advantages and disadvantages that both candidates had.
First, it is clear that Biden was good at communicating his concern regarding the Coronavirus pandemic. For example, Biden not only proved to America that he takes this virus seriously based on the socially distanced campaign events that he held, but also, his mask wearing and demeanor regarding the pandemic clearly put Trump and his administration to shame. This directly was seen when looking at Biden’s negative advertisements criticizing the Trump administration of their handling of the coronavirus. In the ads, Biden is seen painting the picture which blames Trump for the 230,000 plus death toll that has come from the pandemic. At the same time, Biden was successful at encouraging early mail-in voting techniques to secure his bid to office though these negative ads. For example, instead of relying on in-person presence on election day like the Trump campaign did, Biden utilized the threat of COVID and encouraged a constant mail-in voting technique that clearly lead Biden to his projected win following the election. On the other hand, however, as a republican who voted for Trump, I do not believe that the Biden campaign communication strategy made me as an American feel comfortable with him being president. For example, I felt no patriotism behind his speeches, and I lack confidence in his leadership. More specifically, this directly relates to Biden’s refusal to condemn rioting that occurred this year and his support of far-left agenda that penalizes small businesses in the long term. Coming from a family who owns and runs a small business I have no faith that Biden will be able to help us the way that the Trump administration has in the past four years, and it is evidently clear that he democratic party does not like any American who voted for Trump.
On the other hand, in many ways regardless of Trump losing the election, republican voters did turnout more than expected which can speak a lot about Trump’s communication strategy. Looking back, Trump was successful at painting a negative image of Biden throughout the election through the use of aggressive negative campaign ads in the same regard that Biden used them. The message that the Trump campaign painted was that Biden was a corrupt career politician that is not physically or mentally fit to be president. In other words, the Trump communication strategy encouraged a large amount of in-person voting that ruined what Democrats hoped for… the “blue wave.” With this, democrats and many polls indicated that democrats would be “expanding their majority by a significant margin – potentially even double digits,” in the House or Representatives (Gambino). Democrats were also confidant that they had the chance to “knock off Republican incumbents” including Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham (Gambino). However, in the end, none of that came true, and with that, Republicans are projected to maintain the senate and prevent democrats from accomplishing the “blue wave.” With that being said even though Trump has technically lost the White House, this election still could be considered a big win for Republicans based on Trump’s motivating message to get out and vote that was seen in his communication strategy.
MATTHEW BRUIN
ReplyDeletePART TWO
However, on the other hand, the negatives regarding Trump’s communication strategy revolved around the idea that Trump did not take COVID seriously enough. Especially right now with the massive spike in COVID cases hitting the United States it was clear that regardless of any spike or concerns with COVID, Trump ignored COVID advice and guidelines and kept holding bigger rallies. Trump also in many cases was caught mimicking Biden for his smaller campaign events criticizing the white circles and mask wearing that was seen at Biden’s events. With this being said, during such an uncertain time during 2020, this mindset of not caring much about COVID and the denial that republicans seemingly had was the reason I believe that cost Trump the election. In many ways, based on Trump’s visual lack of concern for COVID, I believe that he won over no voter who viewed COVID as a real concern.
Additionally, when looking at Trump and Biden alike, one thing that stood out and concerned me as a voter from each campaign team was each campaign’s use of negative campaign ads as highlighted above even though they helped with campaign messaging. For example, negative campaign ads are “designed to place the opponent in an unfavorable light or in an uncomfortable position” while dismissing any attributes of their opponent to encourage or convince people to “vote against” that candidate (Denton 128). In saying this, regardless of each campaign’s successes as a candidate in or outside the White House, the campaigns in this case draw light to unfair negatives that will only hurt America as a whole. In other words, by focusing on what a candidate’s opponent is NOT, they are instead setting up for there to be a large population of unhappy people that will have no trust in the opposing party’s leadership or platform. This ultimately is what is reasonable for the divide in the United States. With that being said, if I were any candidates campaign manager, I would recommend in political elections that they should instead focus on what THEY will do for Americans rather than what the other candidate CAN’T do or did wrong in the past. If candidates were to do this, I believe there would be more civility in our elections and the United States would not be as divided. In the end, based on the current hostile two-party political system in the United States, I believe that there will be no president for ALL American’s until people stop trying to punish others that disagree with them.
Now, putting both campaign’s communication strategies aside, watching the media coverage of the election and waiting for the results was very painful. Not only was I frustrated and annoyed after election night, but I was confused in many regards based on the winner projections for states in relation to the different media outlets. For example, Fox News’s projected that Biden won Arizona on election night, while other sources such as CNN, The Associated Press and MSNBC waited days to call. For me, this made trusting each news outlet very hard and made watching the election in whole even harder.
MATTHEW BRUIN
ReplyDeletePART THREE
Additionally, I am frustrated with how the “mainstream media” is treating Trump and Republicans. For example, Twitter and Facebook actively censored the New York Post’s article regarding Biden family corruption last month, and as a result of Twitter being “exposed” regarding censorship, Twitter kept at it. For example, on election night, Twitter “slapped a warning label on an election night tweet from President Donald Trump, for ‘making a potentially misleading claim about the election,’” (Bell). The Tweet read, “they are trying to STEAL the election,” and that the “votes cannot be cast after the polls are closed” (Bell). Because the Tweet was classified as “misleading,” nobody could like, share, and re-tweet that post and in-fact users could not view the Tweet without clicking through a protective blind that prevented it to appear on users’ timelines. Regardless of Twitters policy or if this is not censorship, I think that adding a warning message violates the first amendment because in this case it even prevented the President of the United States from speaking his mind without trying to be censored.
Lastly, based on the “projected” election results, a lot was revealed when looking into people’s reactions nationwide. For example, republicans are seemingly bracing the concept that Biden cheated in the election through the use of mail-in voter fraud, while at the same time democrats revealed that the only care about following COVID restrictions when convenient. When looking deeper, right now conspiracy theories are circling claiming for republicans that there was a possible “sting” operation that Trump was a part of organizing to catch democrat favoring voter fraud and that there is still hope. On the other hand, the double standard surrounding the media’s coverage of COVID revealed the truth Democrats and the mainstream media feel about COVID regulation. For example, it was reported that “on Saturday morning liberals flocked to the streets in celebration that the race was called for Biden and the network (CNN) that frequently labeled Trump rallies and White House ceremonies as ‘super spreader’ events was suddenly less concerned with the massive events amid the pandemic,” (Flood). Here, the reporter from CNN, Jake Tapper, clearly has been caught embracing a double standard surrounding following COVID rules. Tapper previously has said that “Trump has likely become, personally, a vector of the disease… the president is taking part in action that could result in loss of life,” when talking about Trump large events (Flood). However, now because democrats and liberals are the ones at these big rallies, he doesn’t seem as worried. After this happened, Tim Young, a political satirist made fun of this paradox saying, “you can only catch COVID from Trump rallies, church, and small family gathering like Thanksgiving or Christmas. When you attend a Black Lives Matter riot or a massive celebration for Joe Biden, CNN is clear that you are immune to any and all airborne illnesses,” (Flood). Here regardless of party or who someone voted for, the reaction seen as a result of this election highlights the problem with hate and division that exists in America at this current moment.
MATTHEW BRUIN
ReplyDeletePART FOUR
Finally, regardless of this disaster so far, there is still some good that has come from this election. For example, it has been determined that “for both parties, voter turnout was record breaking,” totaling that at least 161 million Americans voted in the 2020 presidential election,” (Goldsmith). By having record voter turnout, it clearly shows the increase in involvement that Americans are desiring to have in elections. Additionally, Biden won the election with over 74.5 million votes, which was more than any presidential candidate had received in American history (Goldsmith). This voter turnout although surprising is said to possibly be attributed to “the expansion of access to mail-in ballots and early voting, with many states changing their policies due to the coronavirus pandemic.” In the same sense, more than 100 million ballots were casted during the early voting period (Goldsmith). As an American regardless of the election outcome, is really relieving to see the increased number of voter’s turnout for an election. I believe that voting is one of the most important things for an American to do, and with such a political divide in the country, I think that this election now more than ever was gave reason for more people to vote. In the end, even though the election did not result in my favor as a voter myself, I think that voter turnout speaks hope for future elections.
Work Cited
Bell, Karissa. “Twitter Labels Trump Tweet for 'Making a Potentially Misleading Claim'.” Yahoo!, Yahoo!, www.yahoo.com/finance/news/twitter-labels-trump-tweet-election-night-061539034.html.
Denton, Robert E., et al. Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices. 9th ed., Rowman & Littlefield, 2020.
Flood, Brian. “#Factsfirst: Jake Tapper, CNN's Coronavirus Double Standard on Trump and Biden Rallies Exposed.” Fox News, FOX News Network, 8 Nov. 2020, www.foxnews.com/media/factsfirst-jake-tapper-cnns-coronavirus-double-standard-on-trump-and-biden-rallies-exposed.
Gambino, Lauren. “Democrats Left to Sift through Aftermath of 'Blue Wave' That Never Crested.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 8 Nov. 2020, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/08/democrats-blue-wave-joe-biden-analysis.
Goldsmith, Annie. “The 2020 Election Had the Highest Voter Turnout in Modern History.” Town & Country, Town & Country, 7 Nov. 2020, www.townandcountrymag.com/society/politics/a34574744/2020-election-voter-turnout-high/.
Mariam Shawish (1/2)
ReplyDeleteThe 2020 election is finally coming to an end, after months of tension and a divided country. After watching both campaigns so closely, I believe that President Trump was very successful in his attack advertisement strategy. This is not surprising; he was successfully able “to criticize freely (and often in exaggerated terms) may well be one of the most important benefits a challenger possesses” (Denton 78). President Trump consistently referred to President Elect Biden as “Sleepy Joe” as well as constantly brought up his old age would get in the way of his ability to run the country. A strategy that is currently failing the campaign is President Trump’s refusal to concede peacefully. According to his Senior Adviser Jason Miller “’ ‘We’re going to go and pursue all these legal means, all the recount methods,’ he said. ‘We’re going to continue exposing and investigating all these instances of fraud or abuse, and make sure … [that] the American public can have full confidence in these elections.’” (Forgey). President Trump is alleging that there is voter fraud with no real evidence, leading him to continuously lose credibility. This proving to be a very ineffective strategy from the Trump campaign, and that maybe it is time to step-down with dignity.
President-Elect Biden came out on top after this hectic week. Biden’s winning strategy was his focus Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the states that originally made Trump President. The Biden campaign “and a bevy of Democratic groups prioritized their ad spending, direct voter contacts and get-out-the-vote efforts there [MI, WI, PA]” (Hunnicutt). This proved to be a very successful strategy as we saw; Biden ended up winning all three states, putting him at 290 electoral votes. I believe that the Biden campaign’s lack of focus on the economy was the reason that President Trump was able to hold onto some votes. President Trump took the lead in showing the country how strong his economic policies are; while Biden lacked to give comfort to a country with economic issues. President Trump “won 81 percent of the vote among the one-third of the electorate that listed the economy as its top priority” (David Sirota). If Biden’s campaign focused more on the economy, I believe that Biden would have won more votes than he did.
The election night coverage was definitely unlike is has ever been. Each outlet had different results and different numbers for each state. For example, at one point, you had outlets who called Arizona for Biden on election night, while other news outlets did not. As the days proceeded, the media outlets became more aligned with who won what state, according to the CNN and Fox websites; Biden won 290 votes, while Trump won 214 so far.
(2/2)
DeleteVoter reaction to Biden winning has been so hopeful and happy. Even as a Republican, I personally felt a sense of happiness when Biden was officially announced as the winner, and I know I was not alone. Cities all over the world, not just the United States, celebrated the President Elect. It felt as though for the first time in months, the country was full of hope and positive energy. Although the world is happy for finally voting out President Trump, people have made it clear that they will harshly critique the new administration and will be closely watching Biden as he leads the country. Despite that, it was nice to see on Saturday night a nation that was not so divided.
Works Cited
David Sirota Andrew Perez Julia Rock et al. 2020. “A Lot Went Wrong for Democrats on Election Night.” Jacobin. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/11/takeaways-election-night-trump-biden-democrats (November 9, 2020).
Denton, Robert E., et al. Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices. 9th ed., Rowman & Littlefield, 2020.
Forgey, Quint. 2020. “Trump Campaign Adviser: Conceding 'Is Not Even in Our Vocabulary Right Now'.” https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/09/trump-campaign-adviser-concede-election-435325 (November 9, 2020).
Hunnicutt, Trevor, James Oliphant, Joseph Ax, and Jarrett Renshaw. 2020. “Biden's Winning Strategy: Flip Rust Belt Trump States and Hold on Tight.” Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-biden-insight/bidens-winning-strategy-flip-rust-belt-trump-states-and-hold-on-tight-idUSKBN27N0OC (November 9, 2020).
Matt Gallo 1
ReplyDeleteMatt Gallo
As we all expected, the 2020 election was one to remember. The way the two candidates handled themselves throughout the three to four days the election lasted, was vastly different. During election night, I was very surprised to see Trump not be more vocal on social media. From a candidate that rips off tweets left and right, while the coverage was going on I was shocked to see him not be more present. With that being said, he was extremely active after the fact even announcing that he won, which obviously was not the case. I found this quite comical that he was so confident that he won. It was clear we would not know the winner for a few days, and this was a very poor move on his part. The main forms of communication Trump used during the days the elections lasted was traditional media, primarily Fox News, and of course Twitter. Trump has used a combination of the two tweeting a lot of clips of Fox News, saying how there is still a chance he could be the president for the next four years. As far as Biden, he did a very good job throughout the days of the election. He did not make any brash statements and stayed in the public’s eye as a more professional candidate. To many people’s surprise, when Biden won Pennsylvania, he won the election, and by a much wider margin than I thought. Part of the reason why is because of the minority voters. In an article on the Washington Post author Samantha Schmidt, stated that 9 out of 10 African American Women voted for Biden, along with 7 out of 10 Latino women. This had a huge impact in the voting, and the Democrats received much more votes from minority groups than they did in 2016. Biden’s main form of communication was targeted advertisements. I could not begin to tell you how many TV ads I saw from the Biden Harris from Tuesday to Friday.
Something I found very interesting was the article on Yahoo! News, which Andrew Romano stated, “Pollsters systematically underestimated President Trump’s support- again. This time they missed by an even bigger margin than in 2016” (Yahoo). This was astonishing given the fact that Biden won by a decent sized margin. Everyone knew the potential effect of the silent majority of Trump supporters, but I am not sure if anyone expected the margin to bigger than it was in 2016, and still fall short of the presidency. I would say the media coverage was quite conflicting throughout election night. Both Fox and CNN both were making strong cases and arguments that both Trump and Biden would win respectively. Obviously, the two television channels are going to support their candidate however for the audience trying to receive unbiased information is was very hard to see who had the upper edge.
Matt Gallo 2
DeleteThe majority of the night I was watching Fox News and something I found interesting was how optimistic they were for Trump. When a majority of the swing states will still up in the air, they were just filling in each state as red, giving the perception to their audience assuring that Trump will win. I found this quite irritating cause rather than knowing the actual facts.
One thing which is not something we have seen is that Trump put up a legal fight to stop counting the votes of battleground states. Trump believes there were illegal votes given to Biden, within the extra days that were necessary to count all of the votes. Republican Senator Susan Collins was quoted saying, “’The process has not failed our country in more than 200 years, and it is not going to fail our country this year’” (AP News). I do consider myself a Republican and much like Collins, I do agree this claim that there were illegal votes is nonsense. I have a feeling Trump will refuse to lose and take this to the Supreme Court, prolonging this fiasco even longer.
I thought the overall public’s reaction was a good one. Many store owners were preparing for riots and absolute chaos throughout the country. However, I believe if Trump won we would see these types of actions, and it is nice to see that there is a civil understanding of not causing chaos over a candidate being elected. A lot of people I associate myself with, were somewhat surprised, including myself. The last seven months have been terrible for Trump, however I still thought he would win the 2020 election. People I have seen are disappointed in the result, and seem a lot less hopeful for our future with Biden at the helm.
Dale, M. (2020, November 10). Trump faces long odds in challenging state vote counts. AP NEWS. https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-donald-trump-campaigns-pennsylvania-michigan-861506f10960504bcdc7e854705c8ef1
Romano, A. (2020). Yahoo is now a part of Verizon Media. Yahoo! News. https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-the-polls-were-wrong-about-trump-again-234138787.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9xdWlubmlwaWFjLmJsYWNrYm9hcmQuY29tL3dlYmFwcHMvYmxhY2tib2FyZC9jb250ZW50L2NvbnRlbnRXcmFwcGVyTm9GcmFtZS5qc3A_aHJlZj1odHRwcyUzQS8vd3d3LnlhaG9vLmNvbS9uZXdzL3doeS10aGUtcG9sbHMtd2VyZS13cm9uZy1hYm91dC10cnVtcC1hZ2Fpbi0yMzQxMzg3ODcuaHRtbCZnbG9iYWxOYXZpZ2F0aW9uPWZhbHNl&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAUyZ9xq_5qTcCRT-Mltrv-pFzSOQP2OO-_ROFb1lN_g3bB9ZfiXoUvYwrbw5FG9ZiG68gitKDkp0juHl4hn-5fF1Q582ud_gfPXrtijvocCAiUcoLCULgvHRONaMnxkPfmp-SbseHw36PDWxypMFhFUC9WfIvrevmpACgW0PKtU
Schmidt, S. (2020, November 7). The gender gap was expected to be historic. Instead, women voted much as they always have. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/11/06/election-2020-gender-gap-women/
Jessica Bischer
ReplyDeleteIn an era where over 86% of Americans use the Internet, it is an impossible strategy to ignore amongst political campaigns (Denton 380). Incumbent nominee Donald Trump has utilized his Twitter account to reach American masses at virtually no cost. A New York Times article released in late 2019 covers 11,000 of Trump's tweets within the past three years. It mentions an incident in 2017 where Trump threatened his aides with a tweet, implying the power the American people have through replies and retweets (Shear, et al). Twitter differs from other social media platforms because of the retweet element. Retweets allow users to frequently post others' Tweets to their page to share with their followers and spread messages. Replies are also "retweetable," which may exploit public figures in their rawest emotions. Many political figures see Twitter as a way to make personal connections with voters (Denton 348). In 2016, Twitter, along with other social media platforms, aided the President in his successful election. However, the Clinton campaign failed to fully harness the power of social media, a sea of free advertising (Kosoff). In 2020, Joe Biden and the Democratic party have proven they've learned a thing or two about social campaigning.
As a young voter, speaking from experience in the 2016 and 2020 elections, Hillary Clinton just wasn't "cool," and the worst part was she didn't know it. The difference between Biden and Clinton's efforts with young voting blocs was their awareness. It seemed as if Joe Biden's campaign team employed young people to help create a universal strategy that would reach Americans of all ages. Biden took control of 61% of voters aged 18-29 in eleven key swing states, a factor that may very well have won the election for him (The Guardian). Therefore, it seems obvious that Biden's social media campaign strategies were stronger than Clinton's in 2016.
The media and various political figures prepped America for the drawn-out election process. In an October 23 interview, Bernie Sanders described the idea mainstream media developed as the "red mirage" and the "blue wave." Sanders explains that there will be a large Republican turnout of in-person voters that will be counted first. The following day, mail-in ballots from major Democratic-leaning cities will be reported, rebalancing the scales (The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon). Senator Sanders almost word-for-word explained the way votes would be count and how the current President would react to such results. Various networks continued to warn Americans of the red mirage and encourage the public to wait until all votes are counted. I am also impressed with the way some news analysts were able to accurately predict Joe Biden's path to 270. For example, on election night, Steve Kornacki from MSNBC projected a win for Biden in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan. At the time, it seemed extremely far-fetched to me that Biden would be able to swing Michigan. However, nearly a week after election day, we see this was the path Biden would take to victory.
As far as keeping the election legitimate, the media is doing a very steady job. The media often takes cues from the White House, but at this moment in time, they are not offering much stability to an already struggling population. Various networks, even the Trump-leaning Fox News, have cut away from a few speeches from the Trump Administration due to inaccurate information regarding vote counts. At a time where the nation may be confused about the validity of the election results, the news and media must keep a strong stance on American democracy. The most powerful office in the country is currently held by someone attempting to undermine the election process and for a lot of Americans, it can be scary. The process has continued with Joe Biden's victory speech, providing the steady foundation the nation is seeking right now.
Jessica Bischer 2
DeleteWorks Cited
Denton, Robert E., et al. Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices. Rowman & Littlefield, 2020.
Fallon, Jimmy, director. Sen. Bernie Sanders Predicts How Trump Will React On Election Night. Youtube, 23 Oct. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyGr_huFMh4.
Kosoff, Maya. “How Facebook and Twitter Quietly Helped Trump Win.” Vanity Fair, Vanity Fair, 26 Oct. 2017, www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/10/how-facebook-and-twitter-quietly-helped-trump-win.
Michael, Shear D., et al. “How Trump Reshaped the Presidency in Over 11,000 Tweets.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 Nov. 2019, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/02/us/politics/trump-twitter-presidency.html.
Noor, Poppy. “Surge in Youth Voter Turnout May Have Helped Propel Biden to Victory.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 9 Nov. 2020, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/09/youth-turnout-us-election-biden-victory-young-voters.
Well, that was fun. Living up to the hype as the election that would go down in history, the 2020 Presidential race continues to make headlines days after the announcement of President-Elect Joe Biden’s victory. President Donald Trump is refusing to concede the election and “remains locked in his manufactured reality in which he won” (Collinson, 2020) which is not a surprising move but definitely a detrimental strategy to the final months of his reign. Both candidates had vastly different strategies throughout the campaign which no doubt played a role in the ultimate outcome however, people were so focused on which candidate they were going to vote for it can be argued if any of the strategies were actually effective.
ReplyDeletePresident-Elect Joe Biden laid low in the basement in the beginning months of the campaign. This was particularly helpful in minimizing the amount of opportunities he had for a social gaffe while allowing Trump to make his own errors. When he did emerge, Biden focused on effectively managing Covid-19, winning the support of many American voters who were effected by the pandemic. Biden also distanced himself from the left or the “socialist” label reminding audiences that he was viewed as “too centrist, too moderate, too straightforward during the Democratic primary”, (Jacobs, 2020) which proved to be a beneficial tactic.
True to his nature, President Donald Trump was aggressive from the jump on all fronts, which in his defense was necessary since he has been consistently criticized by the media since day one. He focused on one of his greatest strengths, the economy which was the top issue for both Democratic and Republican parties according to Pew Research Center and went to great lengths to list for voters all that he has done while in office, (Denton, 73) which was supported with evidence of his successes. While boasting his accomplishments, he made sure to point out the lack of movement made by Biden in his 47 years in government. President Trump also went to great lengths to try and convince voters that Biden was corrupt and attack his aptitude which was an unappealing but telling showing of character.
During Election night, it was interesting to see the shift in coverage on CNN and Fox News. As early results came in, they seemed to be in favor of Trump. CNN was already pointing fingers and making excuses for the loss while Fox appeared confident. When Arizona was unexpectedly called in favor of Joe Biden, the momentum changed, and CNN became more hopeful of a Biden victory. Fox began to search for possible electoral votes that would lead Trump on a path towards 270. The election could not be called on Tuesday evening due to having a massive count of mail in votes. On the subsequent days, as the votes were counted, it became more apparent that Biden was going to win. Due to the inconsistencies in the states’ rules to counting ballots, there was much innuendo being raised such as fraudulent activity by the Democratic party when counting votes. CNN is now dismissing all the fraudulent claims while Fox has taken a more pragmatic approach in their investigation of these claims. In spite of these claims, Biden will eventually be President and Trump will eventually concede.
Social media has served as a major forum when assessing voter’s reaction to this Election. Facebook and Instagram are littered with people rejoicing Trump’s Presidential demise or scolding Democratic voters for their ignorance. Statements such as “I hope you remember your part when gas is $5 a gallon or when your taxes go up” seems to be the most common theme amongst friends and followers. It is clear that the same people who were crying themselves to sleep four years ago when Trump was declared President are the same people dancing in the streets now that he has been voted out. One message that is particularly important is that now that Biden and Harris are in office, America has to hold them accountable with taking action. This is not over; it has only just begun.
DeleteWorks Cited
Center, Pew Research. Important Issues in the 2020 Election. 13 August 2020. website. 9 November 2020. .
Collinson, Stephen. CNN Politics. 9 November 2020. website. 9 November 2020. .
Jacobs, Emily. New York Post. 6 October 2020. website. 9 November 2020. .
Robert E. Denton, Jr., Judith S. Trent, Robert V. Friedenberg. Political Campaign Communication Principles & Practices, 9th Edition . Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2020. Kindle.
Newcomb – Blog 8
ReplyDeleteBetween a national pandemic in the midst of a second wave and political division between major parties, this election was bound to be unlike any other in history. What I was surprised about was the constant back and forth of the election. When our class ended the live tweeting, Republicans were on a high after Trump won Florida early on and Trump was ahead in key swing states. As the night and days continued, Biden supporters started and continued their high as more and more states started leaning or being called in his favor. Moreover, as the night and days went on, we watched election fraud become a prevalent issue. UPS workers started to speak out, videos of ballots in the trash, Sharpie-gate, ballot counting machines malfunctioning and much more started to put doubts about the integrity of the election into voter’s minds. Now, as we look ahead, we have weeks, maybe months, of continuing to follow the lawsuits against swing states that the Supreme Court is looking into.
Biden’s campaign did a very good job at targeting minorities and using celebrities and influencers to endorse the campaign. By drawing attention to celebrities and influencers, he communicated his most important talking points such as COVID-19. To give a few examples, he had a roundtable with George Lopez to appeal to Latino’s and he had Magic Johnson appear at stump campaigns to appeal to African American voters (Kurtz). By using these celebrities in his campaign, he was not only getting attention from the minorities he was targeting, but also the young voters who see celebrities posting for Joe Biden on social media. Biden campaign strategists did a great job at using “influencers who speak to comparatively smaller, but targeted audiences, like persuadable voters from a particular community or people living in a specific swing state” (Heilweil). While Biden lacks the social media presence that Trump has, he made up for it by relying these social media influencers.
Likewise to 2016, Trump’s most efficient campaign strategy is his use of social media. He has accumulated eighty-seven million Twitter followers, twenty-four Instagram followers and over thirty-one million Facebook followers. What he has adopted in his re-election campaign is an active YouTube channel where he posts press conferences from members of his team, stump campaign highlight videos, advertisements, direct messages to the American people, etc. to over two million subscribers. This was a strong push with a strong economic backing as “the campaign and its joint fund with the Republican National Committee have spent over $65 million on YouTube and Google” (Thompson). The usage of his social media is to stick to the rhetoric of “fake news,” and to speak directly to the American people without his words being misinterpreted. To Trump supporters or the greater Republican party, this is important aspect of his campaign that helps him gain support from voters. I think that a downside to the heavy usage of social media was election night and days following that Trump’s tweets were being censored so that people could not interact with it and had to click open the tweet to read it.
On election night and the days to follow, I have primarily watched Fox News. On election night, it seemed as though the political analysts were just as confused on what could happen and what was happening just as much as we were. I believe that most news outlets called the winners of individual states way too early. Fox News, in particular, seemed to have been calling the winners before other news networks and the rest would follow suit shortly after. As I am writing this on Monday night, so much continues to change. As of today, Real Clear Politics has withdrawn Pennsylvania as a Biden win and reversed his president-elect status. This is because they have yet to announce a winner in Arizona, leaving two key swing states up in the air and bringing Biden down to 259 electoral college votes (RealClearPolitics). Where the discrepancy lies between news outlets is Fox News has not overturned Pennsylvania and declared Arizona a Biden win. This puts Biden at 290 electoral college votes (Fox News). CNN currently has Biden at 279 electoral college votes with Arizona never called (CNN). I wish that news outlets would come together to make calls on who wins states, because it leads to confusion of actively following Americans.
DeleteI have seen so many different perspectives about how this election is progressing. To start, my social media was blown up from friends and family. Some are ecstatic about the high possibility of a Biden win and the history that is being made with Kamala Harris. On the other hand, there are Republican friends and family who are distraught posting videos of how corrupt and fraudulent this election was. In my own off-campus home with four other roommates, we are split in our political beliefs. While we all remain respectful of who we support, some are happy in Biden giving a concession speech, and some are glued to the television watching the lawsuits unfold.
Kurtz, Judy. “Hollywood Gives Biden's Digital Campaign Final Star-Studded Push.” TheHill, The Hill, 16 Oct. 2020, thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/521294-hollywood-gives-bidens-digital-campaign-final-star-studded-push.
DeleteHeilweil, Rebecca. “Inside the Biden Campaign's Surprising Influencer Strategy.” Vox, Vox, 22 Sept. 2020, www.vox.com/recode/21429755/influencers-joe-biden-democrats-pacs-social-media-facebook-instagram-campaign.
Thompson, Alex. “Trump Deploys YouTube as His Secret Weapon in 2020.” POLITICO, POLITICO, 6 Sept. 2020, www.politico.com/news/2020/09/06/trumpyoutube-election-comeback-408576.
“2020 President Election - Live Results.” RealClearPolitics, www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2020/president/.
“Elections 2020.” Fox News, FOX News Network, www.foxnews.com/elections/2020/general-results.
“2020 Presidential Election Results.” CNN, Cable News Network, www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/president?iid=politics_election_national_map.
Harriet Rice
ReplyDeleteIn the past, I have never fully stayed up to watch the results come in for each candidate. Going into the 2020 election I was eager, nervous, and excited to find out who the next president was going to be. Going into the night I predicted that I would be going to bed not knowing who the next president would be, however, little did I know it would be four more days to follow! The coverage that night started with no surprises as both candidates were winning states that were predicted. The night felt very slow and the coverage almost got repetitive. I was flipping through channels and found that CNN did a great job breaking down state by state with a screen map. For someone that doesn’t follow politics heavily, I felt they explained the information very well. Also, the reminders from John King to stay calm and breathe were very helpful! The following days were long and filled with anxiety as we waited. My family had the news 24/7 and every morning I was hopeful that we would know the next president. The comments from the President made my stress worse. The constant mention of lawsuits and dishonesty made it hard to see a positive future. The delay made people very stressed and often went to social media to express that. It allowed people to amplify that doubt using their social media platforms (Bond). Trump certainly took advantage of his Twitter as he frequently mentioned how bad the polling was. For example, in one tweet he said, “The worst polling ever, and then they’ll be back in four years to do I again, this is much more than voter and campaign suppression” (Trump).
I think Biden handled it very well granted he had a lead. I don’t think he became overconfident and handled the stress well. Looking at his Twitter in comparison he tweets things such as “We need to remain calm. Patient. And let the process work out as we count all the votes” or “keep the faith” (Biden). Although it is noted that Joe Biden was at a “digital disadvantage” compared to Trump (Heilweil) I personally think that at a stressful time like now those words help everyone get through it. No matter your opinions. I work at a preschool during the week and was given the election day off in fear of the outcome and emotions following. My family don’t all agree on the same candidates so did notice some tension the night of election day but as the week went on it was gone. Just as Biden mentioned in his victory speech, whether you voted for him or not we need to stand together. I think this advice is great moving forward especially as emotions are everywhere for many. As he said, “we have to stop treating our opponents as enemies” (Biden). Doing so will bring hope and unity to the nation!
Work cited
Bond, Shannon. "When The Voting Is Done: Facebook, Twitter On 'High Alert' For Post-Election Threats," NPR 1 Oct. 2020.
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/01/918932036/when-the-voting-is-done-facebook-twitter-on-high-alert-for-post-election-threats
Heilweil, Rebecca. "Inside the Biden Campaign’s Surprising Influencer Strategy," Vox 22 Sept. 2020.
https://www.vox.com/recode/21429755/influencers-joe-biden-democrats-pacs-social-media-facebook-instagram-campaign
“US Election: Joe Biden Vows to 'Unify' Country in Victory Speech.” BBC News, BBC, 8 Nov. 2020, www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54859636.
Xavier Cullen
ReplyDeleteI think the strategy that was most effective for the Biden campaign was using the support of several representatives in swing states as a way to get voters excited and vote for Biden. He relied heavily on Representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Talib of Michigan to sway voters and to ultimately turn both states blue after voting for Trump in 2016. One thing that they did poorly, however, is that they relied too heavily on Republican support and got people like John Kasich to support the campaign, even making an appearance at the DNC. However, he did little to sway the vote. In fact, his home state of Ohio went from a 8.1% margin for Trump in 2016 to a 8.3% margin for Trump in 2020. What it probably inadvertently did was dissuade deep-blue Democrats and leftists from voting for Biden because of his heavy ties to Republicans. Additionally, Biden did little to win Latinx support in Texas and Florida, two giant swing states that could’ve gone Biden’s way had he shown any real enthusiasm to win their vote. Luckily, the election still went his way, but it was way too close for comfort.
For Trump, he did a good job of winning non-white support, improving on his numbers from 2016, which ended up winning him Florida and Texas. In 2016, 21% of Trump’s votes came from non-white voters, which improved to 26% in 2020, according to the National Review. What I think hurt Trump the most in 2020 was all the constant lying and his blatant disregard for science and fact. It got so bad, in fact, that Facebook and Twitter had to put warning labels on his posts because they were so obviously false. Before the election, many polls showed that voters didn’t believe Trump’s usage of Twitter was appropriate, and that it could cost him the election, with 60% of probable voters saying his Twitter is a “bad thing”, according to Politico. It just might have cost him the election, as Joe Biden was seen as more mature than Trump.
Finally, based on my own personal viewpoint, a Biden victory was expected, but a lot of people I know are still worried that he might not be president come January due to Trump bringing several suits to court over the counting of ballots. While there is no doubt in these people that Biden and Kamala Harris won the election, there is a lot of worry that democracy won’t prevail.
Sources:
Bell, Karissa. "Twitter Labels Trump Tweet for 'making a Potentially Misleading Claim'." Yahoo Finance - Stock Market Live, Quotes, Business & Finance News, 4 Nov. 2020, finance.yahoo.com/news/twitter-labels-trump-tweet-election-night-061539034.html.
Evans, Zachary. "Trump Won One-Quarter of Non-White Voters, Improving on 2016 Numbers: Exit Poll." National Review, 9 Nov. 2020, www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-won-one-quarter-of-non-white-voters-improving-on-2016-numbers-exit-poll/.
Johnson, Theodore R. "Tuesday proved that racial groups don’t vote as a bloc — with one exception." The Washington Post, 6 Nov. 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/voting-blocs-racial-groups/2020/11/06/1162ddc8-1fa2-11eb-b532-05c751cd5dc2_story.html.
Nichols, John. "John Kasich Contributed Nothing to Biden’s Election, So Why Should Democrats Listen to His Claptrap?" The Nation, 9 Nov. 2020, www.thenation.com/article/politics/biden-win-aoc-kasich/.
Shepard, Steven. "Poll: Voters Say Trump’s Twitter Use Could Cost Him Reelection." POLITICO, 1 May 2019, www.politico.com/story/2019/05/01/morning-consult-poll-trump-twitter-1295248.
Villarreal, Alexandra. "Latinos Offer Lukewarm Enthusiasm for Biden After Democrat Fails to Woo Voters." The Guardian, 4 Nov. 2020, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/04/latino-voters-joe-biden-support-hillary-clinton.
Christyna Stagg (1/2)
ReplyDeleteThis 2020 election process was definitely a complicated one. The night of the election was all over the place, with election results taking days to process specific states. Days leading up to the election, the day of the election and the days after the election, Biden held drive-in Covid friendly rallies. This is something his team thrived in because it is a great idea during a pandemic. This is a form of campaign communication that helped Biden communicate with his followers and make them feel closer to him through an event that is Covid friendly. A drive-in rally is a great way to host rallies but in a safe and friendly environment. Last Saturday, November 7th, the Biden campaign held a drive-in rally the night Biden and Harris were elected and announced that they had won the election in Wilmington, Delaware (Stahl). This night was a celebratory night for everyone supporting Biden and Harris in the United States. It was a beautiful night, with each Harris and Biden giving acceptance speeches and ending the night with both their families coming out to the stage (Stahl). The night ended with confetti canons and fireworks going off (Stahl). During Biden’s rallies, Biden has made it clear that he is more responsible than Trump in a deadly pandemic (Shear/ Kaplan). Biden’s rallies only held hundreds, with his followers at his rallies in cars, physically and socially distanced (Shear/ Kaplan). This shows that Biden is willing to sacrifice the number of people at his rallies in response to a deadly pandemic and the safety of others.
On the other hand, Trump is only concerned about crowds (Shear/ Kaplan). For President Trump, he is all about putting on a good show for his followers and how he pleases his crowds at his rallies. This is something he has always been good at. It is evident that all Trump cares about is his ratings from his rallies and how much of a show they are. With past rallies, this option of huge rallies was an enormous success because this is what Trump and his team does best. Unfortunately, in the times that we are in right now in a deadly pandemic, these types of rallies are not the best idea. Of course, this does not matter to President Trump. As Trump has held campaigns across the country for his campaign, he broke state orders and federal health guidelines in states he held his rallies in (Mansfield). In addition to breaking state orders and federal health guidelines, his rallies have left a trail of Covid outbreaks, in states such as Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (Mansfield). Health experts stated that even though there is no way to tell if the increase in cases is from Trump’s rallies, the large gatherings of his followers definitely go against all advice and guidance to stop the spread of Covid-19 during a deadly pandemic (Mansfield).
Because of states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia, it took until Saturday November 7th, 2020 to declare Joe Biden as the official 46th president of the United States. These five states had not finished counting their ballots until November 7th (Romano). On Election Night, the media coverage of the states was clearly very confusing. Some states did not declare if they were blue or red for days, leaving the U.S. citizens desperately waiting to see who the next president of the United States would be. On election night, there was no clear winner of the race and people had no clue who was going to win the election. In the days to come, it was made clear that President Trump had overperformed in many battleground states, he won some battleground states and in others, he ran closely where Biden had been leading in polling (Shepard).
Christyna Stagg (2/2)
ReplyDeleteVoter’s reactions were divided among my own friends/ family and what I was seeing people posted on social media. My siblings and friends were delighted and overwhelmed with joy that Biden and Harris won the election. On the other hand, my parents and extended family did not have the same reaction to Biden and Harris winning the election. Over the past few years, themes have emerged in my family over who supports President Trump and who does not. This has created interesting conversations and debates at the dinner table especially during holidays. Even though we do share the same views over politics, we have always debated logically and had civilized conversations over politics. Viewing my own social media has been different throughout different social media platforms. On my own Instagram, I have mostly friends and very little family on this social media platform so all the social media posts have been in support of Biden and Harris winning. Seeing these posts brings me so much joy and being exposed to these posts makes me proud to be the generation that I am a part of. Social media is such a powerful tool, especially during a critical time in the country, like this election and seeing all the posts is very empowering. However, on Facebook, which is a social media platform for mostly family in my case, it is the opposite with divided viewpoints over the winner of this election. It is so interesting to see the divide on different social media platforms, with different generations on each social media platform having different viewpoints on this election.
Work Cited:
Romano, A. (2020, November 04). Why the polls were wrong about Trump (again). Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-the-polls-were-wrong-about-trump-again-234138787.html
Shepard, S. (2020, November 06). The polling industry blows it again. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/06/polling-industry-blows-it-again-434591
Shear, M. D., & Kaplan, T. (2020, November 01). Both Candidates Agree: Trump's Crowds Are Bigger, and They're OK With That. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/01/us/politics/trump-biden-rallies.html?auth=login-email
Mansfield, E., Salman, J., & Pulver, D. (2020, October 24). Trump's campaign made stops nationwide. Coronavirus cases surged in his wake in at least five places. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/10/22/trumps-campaign-made-stops-nationwide-then-coronavirus-cases-surged/3679534001/
Stahl, C. (2020, November 08). November 7 highlights: Joe Biden becomes the president-elect. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/live-blog/2020-11-07-trump-biden-election-results-n1246882/ncrd1246994
A year of division and tension within our country is finally coming to an end, as Joe Biden has been announced the next President of the United States. This was a close race, one that was decided based on the votes of those powerful swing states, such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia. While Biden was proven to be successful, I believe that both campaigns could have made some changes to see a different outcome.
ReplyDeleteA huge part of this election cycle was the role that social media played and how both candidates addressed their audiences. The 2016 election was not the first election where social media played a role, but it was the first election where there was a dominant impact of social media campaigning on the outcome of the election. According to Politico, “In 2016, Donald Trump’s campaign cracked the code on Facebook as a campaign tool — gaining an advantage over Hillary Clinton that was little noticed at the time but helped propel him to victory.” (Thompson) Trump used his successful tactic from the 2016 election in 2020 to connect with voters directly. Trump’s activity on his Twitter profile, is his way of directly addressing the public on a different policy, ideas, current events, and direct attacks on his opponent. On September 24th, 2020, Trump tweeted, “Sleepy Joe Biden just closed down his campaign for the day (Again). Wants to rest! He is a very LOW ENERGY INDIVIDUAL, and our Country cannot make it in these exciting, but complex and competitive times, with a Low Energy President !!!” (@realDonaldTrump) A tweet such as this one is publicized to show those scrolling through Twitter, that Trump has reason to believe Biden would make a weak president. The constant use of the phrase “Sleepy Joe” emphasized by Trump was a strong strategy by his team, as it created constant doubt about Biden’s ability to lead the nation. He was able to directly engage with over 200,000 people by one simple tweet. Trump was able to use social media to his advantage again during this election cycle.
I believe that this election had come down to the swing states, and Biden’s ability to resonate with those states more than Trump. Biden’s campaign had a clear strategy and they were able to execute it efficiently. “Across Pennsylvania, the Biden team had four objectives: mobilize voters in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh; increase its strength in the suburbs; minimize losses in pro-Trump rural communities; and push voters to use the state’s recently expanded mail balloting.” (Hunnicut) Back in 2016, Trump dedicated a substantial amount of time to campaigning in these rust belt area and swing states. He knew they were going to be an essential part of winning the election against Clinton. However, this time around he did not devote the same amount of time and effort and Biden was able to secure more votes in this area. Ultimately, I believe this was Biden’s key to success.
From an observational standpoint, I think both Biden and Trump did a good job and targeting the groups they believed were most essential to their success. The book, Campaigns on the Cutting Edge has emphasized the focus on targeting women and how this has been a goal of both Biden and Trump. “The need to target women voters has well been recognized by both major political parties.” (Semiatin, 202) According to USA Today, “With the pandemic, neither candidate is campaigning in person much, but both have had virtual events aimed at women, often featuring their female surrogates.” (Becker) A poll released just two days before the election indicated, “A national Washington Post-ABC News poll showed former vice president Joe Biden leading Trump by 23 points among female likely voters. Some expected his lead among women to be larger than Hillary Clinton’s in 2016.” For Trump to have been successful he needed to devote more time and efforts to both the swing states and the voter bloc of women. Biden's campaign was successful in securing the votes that are not consistent throughout the history of elections.
Something that I would have liked to see different throughout the whole campaigning process, is the candidate’s ability to connect with college students. Candidates often believe that young voters are not going to go to the polls anyway, so why waste their time. I think it is important for candidates to visit college campuses and talk directly with the youth voter. The ability to address this group in a setting where the candidate can appeal to them specifically would have been beneficial to either candidate. If Trump had spent some time with the youth voter, expressing his plans for future job markets and one's life post-graduation, he could have collected more votes throughout this voting bloc. This is a strategy that I think should be implemented in further elections.
ReplyDeleteUltimately, everyone can agree this was an election like no other. The race was close and both candidates had their strong and successful strategies, while other approaches deemed to not be successful.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
Thompson, Alex. “Trump Deploys YouTube as His Secret Weapon in 2020.” POLITICO, POLITICO, 6 Sept. 2020, www.politico.com/news/2020/09/06/trumpyoutube-election-comeback-408576.
Semiatin, Richard J. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge. 4th ed., CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc., 2021.
Becker, Amanda. “What white women in Swing County, Swing State, USA, think of Trump.” USA Today 6 August 2020.
Hunnicutt, Trevor, James Oliphant, Joseph Ax, and Jarrett Renshaw. 2020. “Biden's Winning Strategy: Flip Rust Belt Trump States and Hold on Tight.” Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-biden-insight/bidens-winning-strategy-flip-rust-belt-trump-states-and-hold-on-tight-idUSKBN27N0OC
Ryan Miller pt 1
ReplyDeleteMuch like 2016, experts and polls weren’t entirely accurate with election results in 2020. Correctly predicted however, was the idea that we wouldn’t have a decision Tuesday night or even for a few nights later. As emotions ran high between Tuesday and Saturday, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden offered messages as vastly different as their campaigns and ideologies.
For Trump, he went from saying he had won to claiming the results were being unjustly stolen from him. Biden remained cool, calm, and collected, and urged Americans to stand by patiently as the process played out and votes were counted.
On Trump’s side, one of his most effective strategies proved to be discrediting anything and everything he could, keeping in tune with his original “drain the swamp” message from 2016. In fact, Trump caused so much distrust for mail in voting that it ultimately doomed him in this race and showed such a stark difference between in person and mail in voting results.
As for Biden, one of his most effective campaign strategies was to continue to take COVID-19 seriously and treat it as a top priority. In fact, Biden received the most votes for a presidential candidate in American history, and numbers from NBC exit polls suggest that the pandemic was a big reason why with 52% of voters believing that controlling the pandemic was vital even at the risk of hurting the economy. It should also come as no surprise that the pandemic was viewed as a main reason the Biden campaign prevailed when he announcing a team of medical officials for the transition into the White House was first on the agenda this week.
Ryan Miller pt 2
DeleteSomething that didn’t go well for either campaign was assessing the votes of minority blocs. As suggested by Theodore R. Johnson in his piece for the Washington Post, black Americans often vote similarly because of their shared history and anguish in this nation, while other groups are often clumped in with them simply because they are not white.
This is a problem for America. Something that stood out to me was how Johnson mentioned that the largest increasing group of voters in the nation are Asian Americans, yet they’re so seldom talked about. In fact, Asian American presidential candidate Andrew Yang was one of the few notable Democrats left off the list to speak at the convention (until it was later rectified) and Biden himself has talked so heavily about having a black running mate in Harris that many people, including myself, didn’t even realize she has Asian roots too.
After talking with a friend originally from the Dominican Republic about the election, I was surprised to learn that her family was very conservative. Because of Trump’s pleasure from stirring the pot when it comes to racial divisiveness, it’s assumed in America anyone from a Latinx community will not like him, but for some who hold more traditional values or see religion as a determining factor, we cannot afford to make these assumptions. In Florida, as Andrew Romano pointed out in his Yahoo article, “pollsters failed to catch a huge Trump-ward shift among Cuban Americans,” which I’m sure stems from the same types of assumptions and fear of some Latinx folks from speaking honestly or at all when it comes to polls.
Since Saturday, social media has been flooded with messages that Biden winning doesn’t mean that he won’t be kept in check and held accountable by the American people. For a campaign that won while halfheartedly embracing a message to “settle” for its candidate, we are in for four more intriguing years.
Sources:
Romano, Andrew. “Why the polls were wrong about Trump (again).” Yahoo, 4, Nov. 2020. https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-the-polls-were-wrong-about-trump-again-234138787.html
Johnson, Theodore. “Tuesday proved that racial groups don’t vote as a bloc — with one exception.” Washington Post, 6 Nov. 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/voting-blocs-racial-groups/2020/11/06/1162ddc8-1fa2-11eb-b532-05c751cd5dc2_story.html
Miao, Hannah. “Here’s what mattered most to voters in the 2020 election, according to exit polls.” CNBC, 3 Nov. 2020. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/03/exit-polls-heres-what-mattered-most-to-voters-in-the-2020-election.html
Now that the 2020 election has come to a close, it is apparent which campaign communication strategies were most effective for each candidate and which ones were less effective. Biden and Trump had fairly different approaches in their communication efforts as a result of the voting blocs that they were trying to reach. For example, the Biden campaign focused heavily on social media platforms specifically ones that are considered to attract Gen Z the most. An effective communication strategy from Biden included the use of Instagram where he put emphasis on the importance of going out to vote in both English and Spanish. Along with this, the Biden campaign utilized the Q&A/interview scene heavily where he participated in a lot of virtual talk shows and Q&A sessions. Biden’s efforts to reach his key voting blocs through social media paid off as he won most minority groups. According to The Washington Post, Biden won “Black voters, 90 to 8 percent; Asian Americans, 70 to 28 percent; and Hispanic voters, 63 to 35 percent” (Johnson, 2020). This differs from Trump in the way that Trump took a much more traditional approach on his campaign trail. The Trump campaign targeted their voting bloc through advertising and the use of Twitter and Facebook. Trump’s strongest communication strategy throughout his campaign came from his Twitter account and from his attack ads that targeted Biden and “the radical left”. Along with this, Trump’s campaign team was more successful in the typical in-person campaigning, such as rallys and travel speeches, than they were online because it impacted their key voting blocs more effectively. The first true transition of power for President Trump in terms of the media will come in January 2021 as Twitter says that Trump’s Twitter privileges will be taken away and “will be subject to the same rules as any other user” (Castro, 2020).
ReplyDeleteThe media coverage of election night can be described as very much hands on and involved. The media coverage that I watched on election night included a lot of back and forth discussions about the “what if'' scenarios. For example, it was common for the stations reporting to involve showing how the electoral votes would look “if” states voted or flipped a certain way. This was an interesting way for the election to be covered but made it more difficult to follow the factual news about electoral votes coming in. Also, the coverage on election night was definitely biased depending on which channels were on. The election coverage in the following days was nonstop in a way that took over seemingly every platform and channel. All of the focus was on the electoral votes of those big swing states. During this coverage, Biden was hopeful about the likelihood of a win for his campaign while Trump stormed several platforms claiming that the results were illegitimate and false. Along with this, Donald Trump was quick to call out the preliminary polling as a lot of the “private polling on which both parties rely suggested Biden would win solidly, and they expected Democrats to benefit down the ballot” (Shepard, 2020) which caused an uprise in Donald Trump after election night.
The voter reaction has been an overwhelming one for those who voted for Biden as seen through the large gatherings of people who have come together to celebrate the win. Major blue cities all over the United States had huge celebrations. On the other hand, those who are upset with the outcome seem to dispute the credibility of the election and side with Trump about early voter fraud and the miscounting of votes. According to Elect Project, over 100 million Americans voted early with a vast majority of votes leaning blue (McDonald, 2020). Based on social media posts I have seen, people who are happy with the election result are still adamant with the idea that there is still “work to do” after the election. Those who fall under the realm of a Trump supporter, have been posting a lot directly to Biden supporters asking them “keep the same energy and support” when Biden is in the office making decisions for the country. This shows the lack of trust in Biden’s ability to lead the country coming from the right side. I was surprised to see less chaos after the election results came out than I thought there would be, but I believe that if Biden had lost there would have been a different result.
ReplyDeleteWorks Cited
Shepard, S. (2020, November 06). The polling industry blows it again. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/06/polling-industry-blows-it-again-434591
McDonald, M. (n.d.). 2020 General Election Early Vote Statistics. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html
Johnson, T. (2020, November 06). Perspective | Tuesday proved that racial groups don't vote as a bloc - with one exception. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/voting-blocs-racial-groups/2020/11/06/1162ddc8-1fa2-11eb-b532-05c751cd5dc2_story.html?itid=sf_outlook
Robertson, A. (2020, November 07). Trump will lose his Twitter 'public interest' protections in January. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/7/21552606/trump-twitter-world-leader-public-interest-exception-ends-january-loss
Hunter Stern 1/2
ReplyDeleteFor Joe Biden, I think this campaign’s “go vote” initiative was one of the more effective in recent history. This election was one of the more divisive in recent history as Donald Trump is one of the most divisive figures in recent history. Despite the election and candidates being so divisive, this year had the largest voter turn out in history by a wide margin, “The highest turnout in the post-World War Two era for a presidential election was in 1960, when 63.8% of voting-age Americans cast ballots, according to Michael McDonald at the University of Florida. Analysts are expecting the 2020 turnout to surpass that mark.”(United States Elections Project) Since so many people feel very strongly about Donald Trump, especially most of the people on TV along with most other celebrities, the collective conscious of most uninvolved voters was predisposed to dislike Donald Trump if they had access to a screen. Joe Biden did not inspire much enthusiasm from uninvolved voters so when they were called upon to vote it was not for Joe Biden it was against the abrasive and mean Donald Trump. For Donald Trump just being familiar with the strategists behind him, I think his most effective campaign communication has been after the election. If Donald Trump was thought to be divisive before I’m not sure what you would call his behavior recently but it has certainly rallied both the party and base when the election seems to have been called. The unified coalition on the right around Donald Trump is strengthening to a point where I’m especially surprised given the fact initially he did not have much support outside of his loyal following. For Donald Trump this is the biggest political gamble he has taken since entering a bid into the presidential race when he announced his running for office in Trump Tower. I see this either ruining Donald Trump and everything he has worked for or the trials move up the small circuits to the Supreme Court where they enact the 12th amendment giving the presidency to Donald Trump.
As far as the media goes, “democracy dies in darkness” (The Washington Post), and that’s why it is so important that the free press holds the powers that be accountable while giving the people the truth. As much as Trump recently has been unifying his coalition against the left, the media has been banning together in order to defend truth and democracy. Where cable stations and social media platforms are usually competing with each other for users and viewers recently we have never seen the media so united. On one hand it has only accelerated Trump’s base to find the media to be bias and to not trust the philantripists who run the media conglomerates but to many other Americans it reinforces everything they have ever thought about Donald Trump. Social media is unifying in that they “would not allow either presidential candidate to declare victory before results are clear, and that they would rely on state election officials and national media organizations to make those calls.” (Karissa Bell) The National Media has called Joe Biden the president and social media has been called upon to protect America’s democracy. Since the media has taken a hard unified stance it has lead some people even some people I know personally have ventured into the conspiratorial. With websites like Reddit and 4chan white supremacists are spreading all types of crazy conspiracies calling it “Q-Anon.” All in all I do not like the trend I’m seeing away from diplomacy and plurality towards complete partisanship and I’m hoping Joe Biden and Kamala Harris can heal the divide in our country because we have never been so divided.
Hunter Stern 2/2
DeleteBell, Karissa. “Twitter Labels Trump Tweet for 'Making a Potentially Misleading Claim'.” Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo!, finance.yahoo.com/news/twitter-labels-trump-tweet-election-night-061539034.html.
Riccardi, Nicholas. “Referendum on Trump Shatters Turnout Records.” AP NEWS, Associated Press, 9 Nov. 2020, apnews.com/article/referendum-on-trump-shatter-voter-record-c5c61a8d280123a1d340a3f633077800.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
As the 2020 presidential race concludes, one common emotion we all felt for four days was stress. Whether you were a Biden or Trump supporter, it was a tight race that left each party biting its nails. Each candidate had differing methods on approach to the overall campaign and how they communicated with their supporters. One area I found interesting was the difference in how each candidate approached Twitter and tweeting during the unforeseeable four days when poll workers were counting the mail in ballots. Biden, on one hand, was encouraging patience and demanding that each vote be counted, while President Trump was tweeting false claims and pushing a narrative of election fraud. In the days leading up to the election, I saw a lot of Biden content on TikTok and other social media platforms while Trump was radio silent for almost six hours on election day. Trump even went so far as saying Quinnipiac (which he pronounced wrong, but we won’t hold it against him) was wrong in polling. According to Connecticut Post, the incumbent said, “To highlight just a few examples, the day before election Quinnipiac, which was wrong on every occasion that I know of, had Joe Biden up by 5 points in Florida, and they were off by 8.4 points — and I won Florida easily,” Trump said.” While he may have won Florida, he tried claiming at the same press conference that he had won the election and that Biden’s lead in the race was due to election fraud. The Trump campaign claimed that they were confident that Trump would overtake Biden in the key battleground state of Arizona, even after The Associated Press called Arizona for Biden. While the news outlet continued to watch Arizona and analyze results, it concluded on Wednesday through its analysis that ballots casted statewide concluded Trump could not catch up in the ballots left to be counted. In an NPR article, NPR staff break down the key voter groups and how its audience can understand the 2020 electorate. Key demographics like gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, household income and other specific demographics were polled nationwide with 0.4 percentage margin of error. While a lot of the percentages seemed to lean in favor of Biden, there were a few key areas where Trump had a lead on Biden in polling terms. However, analysis did show that many Americans favored Biden over Trump leading up to the election.
ReplyDeleteVoting blocs played a key role in this win for Biden. His PR team had specific ways in which he targeted minority communities and in a Washington Post article, Black Women are credited for saving the Democrats. Stacey Abrams, a candidate for Georgia governor, is credited with helping turn Georgia blue (which we won’t know for sure for a few days) with her grass-roots campaign to help register thousands of voters and used her high profile to keep the party focused on the state. While Biden chose Kamala Harris as his Vice-Presidential candidate, whose parents were of Jamaican and Indian decent, it was the way he appealed to women and women of color that really helped his campaign. He preached at events, in emails and on social media to protect the women of this country, the black women and men, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community. In his victory speech, he made the same declarations and promised to be a president for all people and facilitate healing in America. This is a very different message than Trump’s claims of false election results and voter fraud.
While it may be because Trump relied heavily on fear mongering and fake news tactics to help his campaign, most of the people I’ve talked to or seen posting on social media seem to be rejoicing in Biden’s win despite some of the president’s concerning tweets. In my life, I only know a few Trump supporters, some of them being very close to me. While Biden’s win for them wasn’t as pleasant as it was for those who voted blue, one common theme I hear from all of them is that if Biden has policy and plans that actually help America and will support those most vulnerable, they’re happy with his win. Now, it’s up to president elect Biden and vice president elect Harris to keep their promises to the American people and get stuff done.
DeleteWorks Cited
Barrow, Bill. “Stacey Abrams Credited for Boosting Democrats in Georgia.” AP NEWS, Associated Press, 8 Nov. 2020, apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-stacey-abrams-georgia-atlanta-1d265f35303be8ca59836a1a95018d82.
Crumpton, Taylor. “Perspective | Black Women Saved the Democrats. Don't Make Us Do It Again.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 7 Nov. 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/11/07/black-women-joe-biden-vote/?utm_source=twitter.
Slodysko, Brian. “EXPLAINING RACE CALLS: How AP Called the Race for Biden.” AP NEWS, Associated Press, 7 Nov. 2020, apnews.com/article/ap-explains-race-calls-0b1988605f9101f4b799fc63b01e0090.
Staff, NPR. “Understanding The 2020 Electorate: AP VoteCast Survey.” NPR, NPR, 3 Nov. 2020, www.npr.org/2020/11/03/929478378/understanding-the-2020-electorate-ap-votecast-survey.
Yankowski, Peter. “Trump Attacks Latest Quinnipiac Poll, Falsely Claims He Won Election in Live Event.” Connecticut Post, Connecticut Post, 6 Nov. 2020, www.ctpost.com/local/article/Trump-attacks-latest-Quinnipiac-poll-falsely-15706035.php.
Tim Powers
ReplyDeleteThis was definitely one of the most tense and suspenseful elections in recent history. From Donald Trump and multiple members of his administration getting diagnosed with COVID-19 to the horrible first debate between both candidates, it was one of the most interesting few weeks of my lifetime. Both candidates did things throughout the campaign that helped and hurt them on their way to election day.
One of Biden’s strengths was his advertising. Biden spent a lot of money in important battleground states that ultimately helped him with the 2020 election, “Biden and his allies are also racking up ad advantages in the core battleground that put Trump in the White House in 2016” (Bland and Schneider). This ultimately paid off because Biden has been called as the winner in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Pennsylvania; these are all states Trump won in 2016. In addition, while it has yet to be called for Biden, he is currently leading in Georgia, another state Trump won in 2016. One of Trump’s most effective forms of communication was, similar to 2016, his use of his own personal Twitter account. Trump has used twitter as an important tool of his power, “When Mr. Trump got entered office, Twitter was a political tool that had helped him get elected and a digital howitzer that he relished firing. In the years since, he has fully integrated Twitter into the very fabric of his administration, reshaping the nation of the presidency and presidential power” (Shear, Haberman, etc.). In other words, Trump has used his Twitter to attack and appear like one of his supporters and this has shaped his entire run as president.
As each candidate had their strengths, they also had their weaknesses. For Biden and Trump their less effective form of political communication were the debates, particularly the first debate. Both did not perform as well as hoped, “the first of three scheduled debates between Trump and Biden deteriorated into bitter taunts and chaos the night before as the Republican president repeatedly interrupted his Democratic rival with angry—and personal—jabs that overshadowed any substantive discussion of the crises threatening the nation” (Associated Press). The debate made each candidate look like petulant children that could not lead a country. Trump kept interrupting Biden relentlessly with utter nonsense and then Biden, who has a stutter, struggled to get anything of substance out.
The media coverage of the election results was interesting. Because of how it took days for results to officially come out, the coverage was very intense. There was a lot of watching the electoral map for a few days and wondering when Nevada or Pennsylvania would call their winner and thus the election. The Associated Press and Fox News got some criticism from conservatives for calling Arizona for Biden as early as they did. However, right now, that decision still seems correct.
To me, I was very happy with the election results as Biden won. In addition, my friends and roommates were very happy with the election results as they all supported Biden. I saw numerous videos on social media of people celebrating Biden’s electoral win in New York City and Chicago. In addition, I saw a lot of social media posts about Biden and Harris winning the White House, especially Kamala Harris’ win because she will be the first woman Vice President as well as the first woman of color Vice President. It is a very historic win.
Tim Powers
DeleteWorks Cited:
Bland, S., & Schneider, E. (2020, October 07). A bullish Biden campaign invades Trump territory. Retrieved November 09, 2020, from https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/07/joe-biden-trump-territory-426802
Press, A. (2020, September 30). Biden, Trump continue turbulent sparring on social media, during campaign event day after presidential debate. Retrieved November 09, 2020, from https://fox8.com/news/biden-trump-continue-turbulent-sparring-on-social-media-during-campaign-event-day-after-presidential-debate/
Shear, M. D., Haberman, M., Confessore, N., Yourish, K., Buchanan, L., & Collins, K. (2019, November 02). How Trump Reshaped the Presidency in Over 11,000 Tweets. Retrieved November 09, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/02/us/politics/trump-twitter-presidency.html
Election is finally over, and America has selected their next president of the United States, Joe Biden. According to WUSA9, “the 2020 presidential election already has the highest voter turnout rate since 1968” (Riccardi). This was definitely a race to the very end especially with states like Nevada taking days on end to count the votes and making everyone very anxious to see who would come out on top. Both had certain ways of campaigning and it really showed.
ReplyDeleteStarting off with Trump, one of Trump’s biggest tactics was the use of Negatively going after Biden which seemed to work in his favor. Denton states, “Negative messages are specifically designed to attack the opponent. They may focus on the personal weaknesses, voting record, or prior public behavior of the candidate” (Denton 125). It seemed that his plan was to scare voters away from Biden, trying to scrounge up any dirt against him. This tactic was defiantly an attempt to get any swing voters on his side, while this was just fuel for right wing voters.
One of the reasons why Biden won this race is because he reached and was in communication with the right audience. He was the voice of equality and rights. Many far lefts believed that if you were supporting Trump you were supporting racism. According to ApNews, “Biden’s coalition included clear majorities of college graduates, women, urban and suburban voters, young people and Black Americans -- all groups that have risen up in resistance to the Trump presidency…Roughly 40% of Americans identify as racial minorities, but just 14% of Trump supporters do. Biden voters more closely reflected America — 63% of his supporters were white, and 37% were people of color” (Boak). In 2020 this was a big conflict so the fact that trump never denounced white supremacy in the first debate, probably took a big hit on Trump, and helping Biden.
When watching election night. It was a lot of what if’s and scenarios. They were good about staying constantly updated on votes, no matter the percentage sent in. It was kind of exciting, I felt like I was watching a draft for the NBA or the NFL! One thing that seemed to happen after was the claim and conspiracy that this is all rigged and Biden is cheating votes from Trump. Even Trump tweeted himself stating, “We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!” (Trump). This has led to Twitter actually “slapped a warning label… for “making a potentially misleading claim about an election.” (Bell). The counting of votes has created a large speculation that the system is being cheated. When looking on Instagram, Trump voters seem to be very quiet about the loss while Biden voters are rejoicing. If I see a Trump supporter post an opinion, it’s that they believe that Trump was cheated out of a win.
ReplyDeleteBell, Karissa. “Twitter Labels Trump Tweet for 'Making a Potentially Misleading Claim'.” Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo!, finance.yahoo.com/news/twitter-labels-trump-tweet-election-night-061539034.html.
Boak, Josh. “AP VoteCast: How Did Biden Do It? Wide Coalition Powered Win.” AP NEWS, Associated Press, 7 Nov. 2020, apnews.com/article/how-did-joe-biden-win-electiona493c68b6b947c5f90f36efef76d13c2.
Denton, Robert E., et al. Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices. Rowman & Littlefield, 2020.
Riccardi, Nicholas. “2020 Presidential Election Shatters Voter Turnout Records.” Wusa9, 9 Nov. 2020, www.wusa9.com/article/news/nation-world/2020-presidential-election-shatters-voter-turnout-records/507-2616bad5-1516-4dfe-8ea6-fd86a5d5738d.
Aa the contentious race to 270has come to a screeching halt, I think the most effective campaign communications for each candidate all in all was social media. President Donald Trump using Twitter and the Biden campaign utilizing all platforms, creating a field for each of their targeted voting blocks to hear messaging. Donald Trump in particular also utilized ad messaging on YouTube (both the home page and in-video) which I believe gave him an edge over the Biden campaign as well. However, as an article written for Yahoo! Finance by Karissa Bell states, Twitter is no longer putting up with the misleading/false information that the president spreads with his account @realdonaldtrump. Twitter has added warnings and tag lines to many of the president’s tweets, “Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process,” the notice says. Users are also blocked from retweeting, though they can still share it with a Quote Tweet (Bell).” I believe that this warning also has had a negative impact on the president's attempts to grasp younger voters. President-elect Joe Biden however did have the power of young people on his side. Though unofficial (and borderline offensive) accounts like @settleforbiden were made on platforms such as Instagram, they gave him an extreme advantage with younger voters as they created trendy infographics that caught the attention of Gen-Z and millennial voters.
ReplyDeleteThe media coverage from both campaigns was quite different. The Biden campaign in my assessment was very graceful and presidential in their approach, telling supports to trust the process and remain dignified no matter the outcome. Even during the days following the official election day, the president-elect still asked for grace from his supporters as opposed to the outrage and calls of voter fraud out of the Trump campaign. Because of these claims, President Trump has refused to concede to the president-elect causing a delay in the transition of power; “An agency spokesperson said late Monday that an “ascertainment” on the winner of the election had not yet been made. Citing what the agency did during the extended 2000 electoral recount, it signaled that it may not do so until Trump concedes, or the Electoral College meets next month” (Lemire & Miller, 2020). Election night, however, as exhibited in our Election night live tweet project, each network reported something different, causing a lot of widespread confusion. Post-election though, it is obvious which journalists and networks are heavily opposed or in favor of the election outcome. For example, left-leaning news network CNN has been making snarky headlines since the announcement of Joe Biden as President-elect, one headline read “ Trump says he’ll go to the supreme court; unclear why” and “Trump complains that mail-in votes are being counted” (CNN)
I have seen many voters in support of Joe Biden exclaim with joy, and whole cities as well. For example in New York City, someone had posted videos of the eruption of cheers coming from new York city streets once the Biden presidency was announced, in comparison to the somberness 4 years ago when It was announced that Donald Trump would be the 45th president. However, there are still a silent group of Trump supporters who are posting things such as “Trump is still my president, and Biden will never be my president” rhetoric, similar to many liberals have said for the past four years.
Bell, K. (2020). Twitter labels Trump tweet for 'making a potentially misleading claim'. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/twitter-labels-trump-tweet-election-night-061539034.html
ReplyDeleteLemire, J., Miller, Z. (2020, November 10). Refusing to concede, Trump blocks cooperation on transition. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-virus-outbreak-elections-voting-fraud-and-irregularities-2d39186996f69de245e59c966d4d140f
Willingham, A. (2020, November 05). 5 things to know for November 5: Election, other races, Covid-19, police violence, UK. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/05/us/five-things-november-5-trnd/index.html
2020’s campaign season has officially ended, meaning that analysis season has finally begun. For communication experts, the strategies and methods employed by both presidential candidates are crucial to examine in order to conclude which communicative strategies were effective. Effectiveness is not necessarily measured by success, however: although a high Democratic turnout resulted in Joe Biden as the project winner of the election, the noise created by President Trump’s extremely loyal base suggests that both campaigns ran successfully. Biden’s ability to defeat an incumbent not only reveals the public upset created by Trump’s unfiltered rhetoric, but also the cumulative and tireless effort put into Biden’s campaign by strategists and other contributors. In a previous blog, I discussed the Challenger Style approach to campaigning, which is defined in Political Campaign Communication as “a series of communication strategies designed to persuade voters that change is needed and that the challenger is the best person to bring about the change” (Denton 77). Virtually, the foundation of Biden’s entire platform was built on the message of change: this trend is consistent through his televised advertisements, social media posts, stump speeches, and other means of communication. For instance, one of the final campaign ads released by the Biden campaign emphasized their hope for change: narrated by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, viewers are drawn in by just a few daunting words: “When we vote, things change. When we vote, things get better” (Biden 0:11-0:18). Reflectively, it appears that this message hit home to millions of viewers, as Democratic voter turnout was high enough for Biden to win the national election by over 4,000 votes and counting. However, it was not just the message for change that led Biden to his victory. Rather, much of the credit should be given to his strategists that aired this ad and others with similar visionary approaches in key battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia (WisPolitics.com). Without this strategy, crucial constituents likely would not have heard this message and casted their votes in support of Biden. It appears that Biden’s strongest communication style was in Visionary Spots, which “create the impression that the candidate has the leadership ability and the vision to move the country…forward” (Denton et al. 125). Conversely, it appears as though Donald Trump’s most effective communication strategy was in attack ads and similar rhetoric. Although Biden’s campaign put out their fair share of attack ads as well—and even ceased negative ads during Trump’s COVID-19 debacle—Trump has had a much more successful delivery in this field.
ReplyDelete(Part 2)
DeleteThe rhetoric popularly used by Trump against Biden, such as “Sleepy Joe” and “Creepy Joe” has seemed to land well among Trump supporters, as I regularly see these types of comments on social media by pro-Trump voters. Additionally, the accusations regularly alleged by Trump about Biden, specifically his “failure” to accomplish anything in his 47 years in politics, his high-tax rates, and his hyper-caution toward the COVID-19 pandemic are often regurgitated by Trump supporters on social media, even more so after Biden’s victory. I have seen multiple posts by Trump supporters with negative rhetoric along the lines of “Have fun with high taxes” or “Enjoy the next 4 years of socialism.” That being said, supporters of Biden were generally overwhelmed with joy and excitement, posting powerful photos of Biden and Harris as well as calling this a “victory for all Americans.” More progressive supporters of Biden, however, reacted to his victory with dissatisfaction: many social media posts detailing that Biden must still be held accountable and that “our work isn’t done yet” circulated on Saturday, November 7. While the candidates can be somewhat credited for the rhetoric and beliefs of the constituents, the media coverage of Election Day and the following days contained some similar rhetoric of its own. For example, CNN commentators did not hold back on plotting out and strategizing every possible pathway to victory for Biden, while simultaneously casting doubt on President Trump’s ability to win the election. CNN correspondents like John King and Phil Mattingly, however, did provide excellent coverage and insight to the vote counts and state demographics for the entirety of the newly coined phrase “Election Week.” While on the topic of media coverage, it appeared as if political leanings did not necessarily impact the Decision Desks of several media outlets this election cycle. For example, it was interesting to me that conservative Fox News projected Joe Biden as the winner of Arizona long before liberal-leaning news organizations like CNN called the state. The differences in projections between media outlets certainly caused confusion among voters following the election results, as it was difficult to decide which projections to follow. Despite the disparities, all of the media organizations eventually agreed upon Joe Biden as the next President of the United States. This year, it appeared that the voters agreed on this too. While President Trump continues to contest the election results through multiple lawsuits, the rest of the Republican Party seems to be slowly but surely accepting the election results and moving forward. Hopefully, whether Trump concedes or not, both Democrats and Republicans can move forward together under the leadership of Joe Biden.
Denton, Robert E., et al. Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices. 9th ed., Rowman & Littlefield, 2020.
DeleteBiden, Joe. “Vote For Change | Joe Biden for President 2020.” YouTube, YouTube, 27 Oct. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=draCAyqbQ70&feature=youtu.be.
“Biden Campaign: New Series of Ads Lay out Uplifting Closing Message to the Black Community.” WisPolitics.com, WisPolitics, 27 Oct. 2020, www.wispolitics.com/2020/biden-campaign-new-series-of-ads-lay-out-uplifting-closing-message-to-the-black-community/.