Former President Trump has joined TikTok, the popular social media app he once tried to ban, as he attempts to win over disaffected young voters from President Biden.
Biden, whose campaign also has an account on TikTok, has struggled to maintain his advantage with young voters from 2020 as he and Trump prepare to face off once again in November's election.
"This is a vital space for political conversations, especially among specific audiences," said Valerie Wirtschafter, a Brookings Institution fellow in the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative.
"Especially for Trump, if he feels like those are voters who are disillusioned with Biden for whatever reason despite historically voting Democratic, it's a prime opportunity to try and peel them away," she added.
Trump posted his first TikTok on Saturday night at an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) title fight — a move the former president's campaign said was aimed at reaching younger voters.
"We will leave no front undefended and this represents the continued outreach to a younger audience consuming pro-Trump and anti-Biden content," Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement to The Hill.
"There's no place better than a UFC event to launch President Trump's Tik Tok, where he received a hero's welcome and thousands of fans cheered him on," Cheung added.
Trump's first video has garnered 5.2 million likes and 79.4 million views, while his account has gained 5 million followers, easily outstripping the Biden campaign.
The Biden-Harris HQ account, which was created in February, has about 355,000 followers. Its first post during the Super Bowl received a little more than 885,000 likes and 10.7 million views.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
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