As Harris and Trump debated, social media had its own war

By Stephanie Kelly

NEW YORK (Reuters) - While tens of millions of Americans tuned in to watch the debate between Republican Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris on their television screens on Tuesday, a secondary battle played out on social media's smaller screens.

From the opening moment of the debate, Democrats seized on Harris' walk across the stage to shake Trump's hand and introduce herself, posting videos and photos.

"Kamala said you’re gonna shake my hand dammit!" social media user Adam James Smith posted on X, to over 68,000 likes.

Part of Vice President Harris' debate plan was to goad Trump into saying things that could become viral social media clips, advisers said earlier, and the debate suggested that strategy paid off. However, Trump's campaign and online supporters quickly declared victory after the debate was over, claiming a win for the Republican former president.

Harris' sometimes bemused, sometimes alarmed, sometimes skeptical facial expressions as Trump cycled through a series of familiar falsehoods were quickly turned into memes. Trump's repetition of a false claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pet dogs and cats, though, probably inspired the most reaction.

"THEY'RE EATING THE DOGS," quickly trended on social media platform X, buoyed by thousands of posts - including many confused at the quote's relevance in a presidential debate, after Trump said "They're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats."

As the debate ended, Harris scored the ultimate online victory. "Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight," Taylor Swift said on Tuesday to her over 280 million Instagram followers. "I'm voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them."

The post already had over 4.3 million "likes" on Instagram as of late Tuesday, two hours after it was posted.

Social media is playing an even more significant role in this year's election cycle than it has in the past, political strategists say. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have drafted content creators, or influencers, to push information on their party's policies and their candidates.

"(Social media) both is what people think and shapes what people think," said Shannon McGregor, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

Overall, Trump far outperforms Harris and her campaign on followers. The Harris campaign's official Kamala HQ account has 1.3 million followers on X, compared to the Trump campaign's 2.4 million, for example. However, her campaign has received over 100 million "likes" on its videos on TikTok versus Trump's 44 million.

TRUMP DECLARES 'BIG WIN'

Trump's campaign and his supporters jumped on his response as he discussed Harris' economic plan, calling it simplistic and a copy of her boss President Joe Biden's agenda.

"Run, Spot, run," Trump said, in reference to a popular book series used to teach children to read in decades past. The term was quickly trending on X.

Harris put Trump on the defensive Tuesday with a stream of attacks on abortion limits, his fitness for office and his myriad legal woes, analysts said. But the Trump campaign, and Trump himself, quickly declared victory on social media after it was over.

"People are saying big win tonight," Trump declared on his Facebook account after it was over, in a post that quickly had nearly 30,000 likes. He also appeared before reporters and said the moderators were "unfair" to him.

The Harris campaign also declared debate victory in a statement Tuesday night.

Both sides quickly seized on Trump accusing Harris of failing to "meet with (Benjamin) Netanyahu when he went to Congress," referring to a July visit to Washington by the Israeli prime minister, and said she "wanted to go to the sorority party." Harris met with him separately.

Harris supporters on X rallied behind the vice president, who is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a historically African American sorority, with posts like "sorority party to the polls."

On TikTok, Make America Great Again Inc, a Trump-supporting super PAC, also posted a series of victorious videos after the debate to its 3.6 million followers, including a clip from a CNN focus group in which a Pennsylvania voter said post-debate, "When facts come to facts, my life was better when Trump was in office."

(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly, additional reporting by Allende Miglietta; Editing by Heather Timmons and Deepa Babington)