Written by Stephanie Kelly
NEW YORK (Reuters) – As tens of millions of Americans watched the debate between Republican Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris on television on Tuesday, a secondary battle played out on social media with clips and video edits of memorable moments from the debate.
Social media users did not react to the opening moment of the debate, as Democrats seized on the moment when Harris crossed the stage to shake hands with Trump and introduce herself.
Social media user Adam James Smith posted on X that garnered 40,000 likes: “Kamala said you were going to shake my hand dammit!”
Advisers previously said that part of Vice President Harris’ debate plan was to provoke Trump into saying things that could become viral videos on social media, and the debate indicated that the strategy paid off.
Trump supporters shared images of Harris’s facial expressions, sometimes stunned and sometimes incredulous, as Trump repeated a series of familiar lies and repeated a false conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pet dogs and cats.
“They eat dogs,” quickly went viral on social media platform X, fueled by thousands of posts — including many from people who were confused about the relevance of the quote in a presidential debate, after Trump said “they eat dogs, and the people who came in, they eat cats.”
Meanwhile, Trump supporters pounced on his response to Harris’ economic plan, saying it was simplistic and copied the agenda of his boss, President Joe Biden. “Run, run, run,” he said, referring to the popular children’s book series used to teach children to read in past decades. Political strategists say social media is playing a more important role in this year’s election cycle than in the past. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have tapped content creators or influencers to push information about their party’s policies and candidates.
Overall, Trump outperforms Harris and her campaign on X and TikTok in terms of follower count. Harris’s official campaign account at Kamala HQ has 1.3 million followers on X, compared to Trump’s 2.4 million. However, her campaign has received more than 100 million “likes” on her TikTok videos, compared to Trump’s 44 million.