How news influencers talked about presidential candidates
There were more social media posts from news influencers about Donald Trump than about Kamala Harris prior to the recent US presidential election. And their posts about Trump were less critical of him than posts about Harris were of her. This is in part because right-leaning news influencers tended to post more often than left-leaning influencers, a new study by Pew Research Centre shows. The majority (79%) of posts mentioning one of the presidential candidates were posted on X that is owned by Trump supporter Elon Musk.
About one-in-five the US regularly get news from news influencers on social media, and around two-thirds of them say that information helps them better understand current events. The vast majority of the news influencers have no background in news media.
Almost half of the posts on X that mentioned either candidate (48%) were posted by right-leaning news influencers, while only 28% came from left-leaning influencers, the study shows.
“The posts mentioning Harris on the site were more than twice as likely to be critical as supportive (38% vs. 17%). Posts mentioning Trump were more evenly split (28% critical vs. 27% supportive).”
TikTok had the highest share of posts mentioning either candidate from left-leaning news influencers – 45%, or nearly a mirror image of X. The posts mentioning Harris there were a roughly even mix of critical and supportive (31% vs. 35%), but the posts mentioning Trump were overwhelmingly more critical (54% critical vs. 19% supportive).
“Most news influencers were talking about both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, and identical shares were more critical than supportive of each candidate. But there were more posts about Trump than Harris, and those posts tended to be less critical of him than posts about Harris were of her. This is in part because right-leaning news influencers tended to post more often than left-leaning influencers”, the Pew says.
Twice as many posts from news influencers about Harris were critical than were supportive (38% vs. 19%). In contrast, posts about Trump were more equally split (31% critical vs. 27% supportive).
“Partisanship is often a key part of the online news environment, and that extends to news influencers. A slightly larger share of news influencers analysed in this study publicly express a right-leaning political orientation than a left-leaning one (27% vs. 21%). However, the largest share (48%) do not have a clear orientation.”
Three-quarters of left-leaning news influencers were more supportive than critical of Harris, while 69% of right-leaning influencers were generally supportive of Trump.
Both candidates drew heavy criticism from the opposing side: 87% of left-leaning news influencers were more critical than supportive of Trump, and 86% of right-leaning influencers were more critical than supportive of Harris.
“But there was one other clear difference between left- and right-leaning news influencers: In general, right-leaning influencers tended to post more overall than left-leaning influencers. On average, right-leaning news influencers posted 183 times per week and mentioned Trump in 21 of those. Left-leaning news influencers posted 72 times per week on average and mentioned Harris in 12.”
The Centre says that news influencers without a clear political orientation were not especially supportive of either candidate, but they were more likely to be critical of Trump than of Harris. Some 42% were critical of Trump, compared with 26% who were critical of Harris.
A previous Pew study of news influencers shows:
- About one-in-five Americans – including a much higher share of adults under 30 (37%) – say they regularly get news from influencers on social media.
- News influencers are most likely to be found on the social media site X, where 85% have a presence. But many also are on other social media sites, such as Instagram (where 50% have an account) and YouTube (44%).
- Slightly more news influencers explicitly identify as Republican, conservative or pro-Donald Trump (27% of news influencers) than Democratic, liberal or pro-Kamala Harris (21%).
- A clear majority of news influencers are men (63%).
- Most (77%) have no affiliation or background with a news organisation.
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