Campaign 2020: US presidential race goes digital

The 2020 US presidential race is becoming a digital-first campaign as the coronavirus pandemic cuts candidates off from traditional organizing and in-person events.

On the surface, President Donald Trump has the edge over Democrat Joe Biden because of the incumbent’s extensive digital infrastructure and large social media following.

But Biden has been stepping up his digital presence and is getting a boost from a handful of outside organizations seeking to counter Trump’s messaging on social platforms.

Both sides agree digital will play a critical role in the 2020 presidential election as social media have taken the place of rallies and door-to-door campaigning.

“The digital campaign has always been important. What has changed now is that it’s the only show in town,” said Republican digital strategist Eric Wilson, who has no direct role in the Trump campaign.

Wilson said the Trump campaign’s experience since 2016 means it has a head start while Biden has been slow to embrace a digital strategy.

“Voters are consuming politics as entertainment and Biden doesn’t seem to grasp his role as a social media influencer and doesn’t see any interest in changing that,” Wilson said.

Trump has some 81 million Twitter followers compared with 5.8 million for Biden, and similar advantages on Facebook and other platforms.

But Biden and an array of progressive organizations have been working to flood the Internet with messages to neutralize Trump and his supporters.

Digital advertising for the 2020 election is expected to reach US$1.8 billion, according to research firm Advertising Analytics, which boosted its estimates by 13.5 percent due to the pandemic.

The progressive policy group Acronym and its political action committee Pacronym have pledged a US$75 million digital campaign to bring out voters for Biden.

“Since last August we started to counter what we knew would be a sophisticated digital operation by Trump,” said Acronym founder Tara McGowan.

“We wanted to provide air cover for whoever the Democratic nominee would be since we knew the nominee would have a time and resources deficit.”

Research by the group found a 3.6 percentage point drop in Trump’s approval rating among “persuadable voters” who have seen Pacronym’s digital ads.

Acronym’s analysis of online ad spending showed Trump has spent over US$62 million on Facebook and Google advertising since the 2018 mid-term elections, compared with US$21.9 million for Biden.

But the analysis showed Biden and progressive groups began outspending Trump and his backers in early May on Facebook, and narrowed the gap on Google.

“I don’t think the candidates themselves need to be as comfortable on social media as much as they need to hire experienced digital staffers,” McGowan said. “We’ve seen the Biden campaign make leaps and bounds in their digital strategy.”

Other groups are also active: the Democratic party organization Priorities USA is pledging to spend US$150 million to defeat Trump, with at least US$40 million in digital. The newly formed political action group Defeat Disinfo plans to use paid influencers on social media and counter misinformation before it goes viral.