The profound effect podcasts and the internet had on Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election have permanently changed politics and media, analysts told the Daily Caller.
Trump successfully championed what one analyst labeled “the creator economy” to resounding success. His October appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” garnered over 50 million views on YouTube alone.
While his opponent Kamala Harris did sporadic hits, her reach within independent media paled in comparison to Trump’s.
Trump’s outreach was broad. He appeared on the podcasts of comedians like Theo Von and Andrew Schulz, influencers like Logan Paul and the Nelk Boys and computer scientist Lex Fridman.
He featured in a YouTube video with PGA pro golfer Bryson DeChambeau, which racked up over 13 million views.
BEDMINSTER, NEW JERSEY – JULY 28: Former U.S. President Donald Trump and Bryson DeChambeau of Crushers CG react after playing from the first tee during the pro-am prior to the LIV Golf Invitational – Bedminster at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster on July 28, 2022 in Bedminster, New Jersey. Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images
He appeared with Twitch streamer Adin Ross and even recorded an episode of “Bussin’ With The Boys,” a Barstool Sports podcast hosted by two former NFL stars.
Thanks in part to this strategy, the Trump campaign spent significantly less money on advertising than the Harris campaign, outsourcing the majority of the traditional “ground game” — canvassing, door-knocking and voter registration — to groups and individuals like Scott Pressler and Elon Musk’s America PAC.
This embrace of new media allowed the Trump campaign to micro-target select demographics like young men and Hispanic voters without having to spend a dime on focus groups or advertising, Emily Jashinsky, D.C. Correspondent for UnHerd and co-host of the “CounterPoints” segment of the popular “Breaking Points” podcast, told the Daily Caller.
“A ground game in the past involves reaching hyper-targeted groups of voters, so soccer moms,” Jashinsky said. “But now, with the media splintered in the way it is, you can just reach so many people really quickly in a way that is more casual and buttoned down than a 60 Minutes interview,” she said.
Selecting the voters you want to speak to through these emergent mediums requires more in-depth research, but the payoff is well worth the effort, Jashinsky explained.
“In one sense, it’s really easy to hyper-target groups now. So you can hyper-target young men by going on Theo Von or the Nelk Boys or Adin Ross or something like that. You can hyper target young golfers with a big golf channel on YouTube, so you have to do a lot more to reach the same amount of people, but at the same time, you can really target your message,” she said.
While Harris did engage in some podcasts and less traditional media appearances, she was late to the game and didn’t garner nearly as much attention as Trump did.
The short clip from her interview on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast has around 895,000 views on YouTube at the time of writing. Her “Club Shay Shay” interview with NFL Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe has 1.6 million views on the platform. (RELATED: After Weeks Of Hiding From The Media Kamala Finally Came Out Of Her Cave, Voters Responded)
Trump’s October appearance with the popular YouTube pranksters the “Nelk Boys” has 7.1 million views. His Theo Von interview has 15 million.
There’s an old adage about political ground games that states candidates should “meet the voters where they are.” Through podcasts, Trump did exactly that, Democratic strategist Dan Turrentine told the Caller.
“It’s a sign of respect when you go to people where they are, and you show respect for what they care about,” Turrentine said. “It came across to people as like, ‘This guy is truly one of us. He gets us.’”
Turrentine explained that the blitz broke through to his young sons who saw Trump appear at a Philadelphia sneaker convention in February and later saw his golf video.
“When he played golf with DeChambeau, our four boys saw it, and they were like, ‘This is so cool.’”
Bryson DeChambeau’s YouTube video with Donald Trump has more than 1.8M views around 8 hours after its posting earlier today.
It’s currently the #1 trending video on YouTube pic.twitter.com/vBCNJJeplg
— Josh Carpenter (@JoshACarpenter) July 24, 2024
Left-wing pundits credited a “right-wing media infrastructure” for Trump’s win.
“It’s an elaborate, multi billion dollar infrastructure, and there is nothing like it on the pro democracy side,” MSNBC’s Anand Giridharadas said. “When a man is just lost and lonely and not yet radicalized, we don’t have the equivalent of Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson to move that man in a feminist direction.”
Morning Joe had Anand Giridharadas on today and he had a total meltdown about @joerogan, @jordanbpeterson, and other conservative media figures.
Wild stuff from Giridharadas on the conservative “media ecosystem”:
“It’s not a good one, it’s a negative one. It’s a it’s a… pic.twitter.com/MZMhmebeRS
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) November 8, 2024
Despite that complaint, many of the podcasts that Trump went on are typically apolitical, particularly Theo Von’s, Logan Paul’s and Lex Fridman’s.
Moreover, the left does have a foothold in the podcast sphere. Influential podcasts like NPR’s “Up First,” the New York Times’s “The Daily” and the Pod Save America network, which was started by former Obama administration officials, regularly top the charts.
Spotify’s U.S. podcast charts show the current top 10 have a healthy mix of conservative, liberal and politically neutral podcasts.
A screenshot of the top Spotify US podcast charts. Screenshot/Spotify
Rogan’s show, which Turrentine argued is not an explicitly conservative podcast, is number one.
Conservatives Charlie Kirk and Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson slot in at four and five, respectively. But Pod Save America, Jon Stewart and the New York Times follow in short order at six, seven and nine.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 12: (L-R) Tommy Vietor, Jon Lovett and Hillary Clinton speak after the “Pod Save America Live” event during the 2023 Tribeca Festivalat BMCC Theater on June 12, 2023 in New York City. Jason Mendez/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival
The rest of the top 25 aren’t explicitly dominated by conservatives, but Republican stalwarts like Megyn Kelly, Ben Shapiro, Dan Bongino and Shawn Ryan all have healthy footholds in the rankings.
The right wing’s high placement in the new media hierarchy is not the result of a shrewd manipulation of the levers of internet information channels, but rather it is the product of necessity, Chris Balfe, founder of the podcast production company Red Sea Ventures, pointed out.
“There are structural reasons for why the right had to go in this more independent media space, because mainstream media can still get mainstream advertisers, whereas right of center media has trouble there,” he explained. “So there’s reasons. It wasn’t just like right of center media was better at it. It was right of center media was forced to build their own parallel economy. They were forced out of the mainstream.”
I find it beautifully ironic to see liberals lamenting the “right-wing media infrastructure” that helped deliver President Trump a victory, as if we weren’t forced to create our own by their total and complete monopoly over the flow of information for years.
— kiersten pels (@KierstenPels) November 8, 2024
Steve Krakauer, a journalist who authors “The Fourth Watch” newsletter and executive produces “The Megyn Kelly Show,” voiced a similar sentiment.
“For so long, conservatives have felt like they’re out in the wilderness looking for media that doesn’t talk down to them … People that are maybe politically independent, most of the country, let’s say, and conservatives as well, feel that the choices that are out there within the legacy established media are not for them,” Krakauer told the Caller.
The idea that a dearth of left-wing podcasting led to Trump’s victory “totally misses the point,” Krakauer argued. “The solution is not making left wing podcasts that you can exploit. It’s being able to authentically communicate with people about your opinions.”
That authenticity was as much of a boon to Trump as it was a scourge to Harris. (RELATED: ‘Cleaning Up Kamala’ | WATCH NOW)
One previously undecided voter in the swing state of Arizona told MSNBC he chose to vote for Trump after Harris declined to appear on Rogan’s podcast.
“She didn’t seem like a real person because she couldn’t talk for an extended period of time,” the voter told the outlet.
Harris allegedly declined to fly out to Rogan’s Austin, Texas studio to record one-on-one and out of sight of her campaign staff, instead offering for him to come to her, Rogan revealed in a recent podcast.
Her refusal was a poor choice, Turrentine argued. (RELATED: Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna Says Kamala Harris Messed Up By Not Going On Joe Rogan’s Show)
“You need to be talking to everybody. You need to be going on. You need to let your hair down a little bit. You need to have respect for their audiences there. There are usually agreement points. And I think most podcasters and influencers will have you on if you’re respectful, and they’ll talk about where you agree. They’ll push you a little bit on areas where you disagree, but you got to keep a smile about it,” Turrentine said.
“Going on Joe Rogan early would have said, ‘I’ll talk to anyone, anywhere, and I am confident.’ Instead, she looked weak and cautious, and Trump is the opposite, and he ground her down,” he argued.
Jashinsky concurred that it was a mistake for Harris to decline. She did stress, however, that it would have been a huge risk for a candidate whose strong suit isn’t authenticity.
Due to voters’ skepticism of Harris’s apparent inauthenticity, her team “should have been terrified,” by the prospect of doing Rogan, Jashinsky argued, though she concluded Harris ultimately should have done his show.
The risk, she argued, swung both ways, but Trump was bold enough to capitalize.
Podcasts are a risky medium for any politician to appear on, even a figure as unorthodox as Trump is, Jashinsky said.
She pointed to a viral clip of Theo Von, a recovering addict, talking about his previous cocaine use with Trump.
Theo Von teaching Donald Trump about cocaine is the funniest thing I’ve seen all year pic.twitter.com/OVPHLENcZx
— Adam Foster (@AdamFostermusic) August 20, 2024
“It sounds quaint to people our age. It’s like, yeah, that’s not changing anybody’s mind. Nobody’s going to be scandalized if Donald Trump asked Theo Von about cocaine. But we take for granted how dramatic of a change that is from just 10 years ago, when that for any political candidate would have been seen as political suicide.”
The decision to skip out on Rogan likely contributed to Harris’ poor performance with young men. While she won the under 30 crowd overall, she lagged with that group compared to President Biden’s 2020 performance.
Trump, meanwhile, did even better with young voters than he did in 2016.
Men ages 18-29 seem to have shifted near 30 points rightward from 2020, while women ages 18-29 have a less pronounced shift to the right but still extant. pic.twitter.com/yvqLPyidsE
— Sami Gold (souljagoyshmulik on BlueSky) (@souljagoytellem) November 6, 2024
For Harris, passing on Rogan likely did not play well with his audience, Jashinsky said.
“You look like a coward, and you look like someone who disrespects them and doesn’t think that they’re important enough to reach,” she said. “We saw how it played out. We saw young men swing really significantly. Maybe those people weren’t ever reachable by Kamala Harris. But I mean, if you’re a presidential candidate and can’t talk to a podcast host, you’ve got bigger problems.”
Also, for the record the Harris campaign has not passed on doing the podcast. They offered a date for Tuesday, but I would have had to travel to her and they only wanted to do an hour. I strongly feel the best way to do it is in the studio in Austin. My sincere wish is to just…
— Joe Rogan (@joerogan) October 29, 2024
Rogan’s import in this election cycle proves just how far the media goalposts have shifted.
At one time, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Fox News’s Sean Hannity, radio programs like Howard Stern‘s and other legacy media institutions were the king makers for political candidates. But this election has proved that there’s a changing of the guard.
“The podcaster/influencer world is going to take on way more importance than traditional media and traditional forms of communications for both parties,” Turrentine told the Caller.
Americans, especially younger ones, are increasingly looking to independent media for their news. 37 percent of Americans under 30 say they regularly get news from influencers on social media, according to a Pew Research poll.
The independent landscape is “going to be the most important media space for candidates to prove themselves,” Jashinsky said.
“People are eager to judge candidates by their appearances on these less stage-managed platforms,” she continued. “It just feels much more authentic, and it’s what you’re used to seeing, if you’re under the age of 40. It’s just sort of how you’re used to consuming media now. And if you can’t look natural in this new medium, you are going to look like a dinosaur.”
As independent media continues to siphon viewers from legacy platforms, cable networks and other mainstream institutions will have to adapt or die, Krakauer explained.
“It wouldn’t shock me if CBS News just didn’t exist in four years,” he said. Going forward, Krakauer argued, candidates themselves may further eliminate the middle man and start their own podcasts to explain their platform.
We may very well see a J.D. Vance-cast by 2028, Krakauer argued.
Some existing institutions have already started pivoting to digital, with The New York Times being one example Turrentine pointed to. Others, he said, may look to acquire podcast networks or license already-popular creators’ products, like ESPN has done with the “Pat McAfee Show.”
The transition won’t be immediate, as many older people still look to cable news and legacy media as their most trusted source, Krakauer said, but as those generations age out, they’ll become less and less relevant.
“Even if they did everything right, even if they were serving the people in the way that people want, every day they become less influential. Because they haven’t adapted to this new situation of not alienating people, they’re only accelerating their death.”