Trump’s social media interactions are down. Here’s why that helps him.
Plus: This new Christie ad is actually pretty good
Hello, in this issue we’ll look at…
The No. 1 target of attack ads is Joe Biden
This new Christie ad is actually pretty good
Trump’s social media interactions are down. Here’s why that helps him.
Scroll to the end to see: where in the U.S. a Republican art gallerist is running for Senate.
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The No. 1 target of attack ads is Biden
More political advertising attacked President Joe Biden last year than any other candidate, according to analysis from the ad tracking firm AdImpact.
Ads from Republican candidates and groups criticizing Biden aired more than 39,000 times in the last year, accounting for 60% of attacks in presidential campaign advertising, according to AdImpact. Attacks on Biden mentioned the economy more than any other issue.
Biden was followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was the target of more than 13,000 ad airings, or 20% of attack ads, and former President Donald Trump, who was the target in more than 8,000 ad airings, or 13%. Coming in fourth is former U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who was shown in nearly 5,000 ad airings, or 7%.
That the incumbent Democratic president bore the brunt of attacks a year before a Republican primary is to be expected, but it’s striking to see the extent that Republican campaigns and outside groups left Trump alone. 66% of Republican presidential attack ads attacked Biden and just 3% attacked Trump.
Ads for two big spenders who’ve since dropped out, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, (who self-funded) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) (who was backed by billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison) completely ignored attacks on Trump in their and their allies’ advertising and aimed their fire exclusively on Biden.
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy even went so far as to air an ad in New Hampshire that was in support of Trump. In the ad, Ramaswamy calls Trump’s indictment “politically motivated prosecution.” Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is the only Republican candidate to target negative ads exclusively towards Trump, AdImpact found (see more in the section below).
Just 2% of ads from Biden and his allies last year were attack ads, per AdImpact, and his messaging last year was mostly focused on promoting his record in office.
This new Christie ad is actually pretty good
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie isn’t using voice overs, music, or b-roll in his new New Hampshire ad “Some People Say.”
Lit against a black backdrop and speaking straight to camera, Christie characterizes himself as the only candidate who’s willing to tell the truth, and he opens with quite the hook: “Some people say I should drop out of this race. Really? I’m the only one saying Donald Trump is a liar.”
“He pits Americans against each other,” Christie says. “His Christmas message to anyone who disagrees with him? Rot in hell. He caused the riot on Capitol Hill. He’ll burn America to the ground to help himself.”
Though the ad is professionally lit and well shot, it’s stripped back. It uses a lack of gimmicks or pretense to underscore the candidate’s message that he’s the only honest person in the race, and most of the ad is an attack on Trump to prove his point. “Every Republican leader says that in private. I’m the only one saying it in public,” he says.
“What kind of president do we want, a liar or someone who’s got the guts to tell the truth?” Christie says. He ends the 32-second ad with a sign off to voters in the first-in-the-nation primary state and a kicker to reemphasize his message: “New Hampshire, it’s up to you. And you bet I approve this message.”
More than $1 million will be spent to air the ad in New Hampshire, according to NBC News, and it joins Christie’s first ad of the campaign “Only One,” which hits DeSantis and Haley for attacking each other instead of Trump. An attack ad about attack ads. The spot began airing in New Hampshire last month, according to Axios.
Christie is releasing other stripped-down ads in the same vein as “Some People Say.” In “Christie: I Have An Admission To Make,” released today, Christie admits to endorsing Trump eight years ago because the former reality show host was winning and he thought he could make him a better candidate and president. “I made a mistake,” he says. In “The Choice” Christie speaks straight to camera against a white background about the choice of “who we want to be as a country.” This ad does have background music, but it has a similar message. “I’m not perfect, I’ve made mistakes, but I will always tell you the truth,” Christie says.
Christie’s message is that he’s the only one in the race willing to say the emperor has no clothes, and his simple approach to advertising reinforces the sentiment. Each ad ends with the campaign’s slogan “Because The Truth Matters.”
Christie is polling in third at about 11% in New Hampshire behind Trump at 44% and Haley at 26%, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average in the state. The New Hampshire primary will be on Jan. 23.
Trump’s social media interactions are down. Here’s why that helps him.
Former President Donald Trump could once count on getting tens of thousands of likes every time he tweeted, but his posts today on Truth Social receive just a fraction of the interactions.
That’s according to an Axios analysis that compared Trump’s Twitter interactions every November from 2015 to 2020 and his Truth Social interactions from Nov. 2022 and Nov. 2023. The drop off has been dramatic.
In Nov. 2020, Trump’s tweets averaged 206,000 likes, but that number fell to less than 24,000 likes on Truth Social in Nov. 2022 and less than 18,000 in Nov. 2023.
Just as Jeremy Renner could never reach as many people on the Jeremy Renner app as he could on, say, a social network like Facebook that offers both Jeremy Renner and non-Jeremy Renner content, Trump is limited by who he can reach on a social network built around him. But what if that’s actually been a net positive for his campaign?
While plummeting social media interactions is bad news for marketers or influencers who sell more product the more they post, it’s good news if your posts actually repel potential supporters, as a majority of Americans believed Trump’s tweets did.
A 56% majority of U.S. voters said Trump used Twitter too much in 2016, a figure that rose to 70% by 2019, according to Politico-Morning Consult polling, and 46% believed Trump’s Twitter use hurt his 2020 reelection bid, more than double the percentage who said it was an asset.
Some of Trump’s recent Truth Social posts include him saying “illegal immigration is poisoning the blood of our nation”; a word cloud from a Daily Mail survey of what respondents said Trump’s second term would be like, which included the words “dictatorship,” “corruption,” “revenge,” and “power”; and his recent Christmas tirade.
Since being reinstated on the platform now called X, Trump has posted just once, to show his mugshot last August and link to his website, even as he continues to microblog furiously on his own site. It’s the digital equivalent to the “basement campaign” he accused Biden of running in 2020. You can’t make gaffes in your basement if no one’s watching and you’re less likely to go viral if you’re posting to a niche message board that most people don’t follow.
Have you seen this?
🎧 Political merchandise can tell us a lot about an election. I was a guest on “The Colin McEnroe Show” this week to talk about campaign merch and branding. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts: [The Colin McEnroe Show]
Art gallerist Stefan Simchowitz is running for U.S. Senate in California. No it’s not performance art. Simchowitz, who is running as a Republican to fill the seat vacated by the late Dianne Feinstein, said, “No, this is not a joke, this is not some stupid art performance. This is a real thing.” [Artnet News]
Britney Spears shuts down rumors of new album, vows to “never return to the music industry.” But she said she is a ghostwriter. “I’ve written over 20 songs for other people the past two years !!! I’m a ghostwriter and I honestly enjoy it that way !!!,” Spears wrote on Instagram alongside a photo of the painting “Salome Bearing the Head of St. John the Baptist.” [Hypebeast]
Biden campaign previews Jan. 6-focused speech with new TV ad. As President Joe Biden prepares to deliver his first major re-election speech of 2024, marking the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, his warning about the fragility of America’s democracy will be front and center in the campaign's first ad to hit the airwaves this year. [NBC News]
YELLO subscriber exclusive:
History of political design
“Vote Line 34A: Seymour for Congress” (1968) poster. Republican Whitney North Seymour Jr. was a New York State lawmaker who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1968 against Democratic Rep. Ed Koch.
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