Will Joe Biden’s late start social media cost him the election?
Joe Biden is rapidly scaling up his digital campaign as he scrambles to contend with Donald Trump’s formidable online operation, but Democrats say the presidential hopeful must move beyond flat speeches delivered from his basement.
The Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee is doubling how big is his digital team-currently at a reported 25 people-and his campaign said Monday it really is launching a flood-the-zone approach across multiple online platforms.
But with November’s election significantly less than half a year away and traditional campaigning halted due to the coronavirus pandemic, Biden is within an awkward spot.
While Biden talks into a camera in an empty basement studio in Delaware where he's under stay-at-home orders, Trump is centre-stage, acting-successfully or not-to address the crisis and reopen the shuttered economy.
The contrast was driven home the other day when Biden’s virtual rally in Florida was marred by technical glitches.
Some Democratic campaign specialists have described Biden’s basement tapes as too static and packaged.
Strategists have openly worried that Biden has already been dangerously behind Trump on key metrics across platforms including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
The 77-year-old former vice president should rapidly adjust to new political realities if he's to compete with a president whose data-mining and voter targeting businesses are vast.
The 2020 election is “a battle for the soul of the nation,” Biden likes to say.
“But it’s also a battle for the soul of the web. And it’s a battle we plan to win,” Biden’s digital director Rob Flaherty tweeted Saturday as he announced several new hires.
They include senior digital advisor Caitlin Mitchell, a former top staffer for Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign.
Trump’s online effort has been fire and brimstone since Day 1. Last week campaign chair Brad Parscale likened Trump’s organised digital campaign to attacks by the “Death Star” from Star Wars.
Biden’s campaign argues that Biden reflects Americans’ desire to have a leader with skills and experience to complete the job.
The message? “He’s prepared to lead in a moment of crisis such as this, and that he gets the compassion and empathy that Trump has been sorely lacking,” Biden deputy rapid response director Mike Gwin told AFP.
Precisely how Biden gets that message out may be the campaign’s defining question.
“Online speeches from his basement won’t cut it,” warned Barack Obama campaign veterans David Axelrod and David Plouffe in a recent New York Times essay.
“So that you can break through and be heard, (Biden) will have to up the tempo of his campaign, fully utilise his army of powerful surrogates and embrace a new suite of virtual, data-driven tools and creative tactics.”
The campaign argues it is on its way, with Biden videos, advertisings or events viewed online 112 million times since mid-March. But Trump’s staggering digital following dwarfs that of Biden, who will have to embrace Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat so that you can compete.
Digital infrastructure group Acronym says Trump’s campaign has spent $55.9 million on Facebook and Google advertising since 2018, while Biden’s has spent $19.6 million on those platforms since launching this past year.
Biden has nevertheless taken in hefty donations, including an eye-popping $60.5 million in April, his campaign said.
