US Democrats to welcome social media influencers in a convention first

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats will open the door for social media influencers to cover their political convention in Chicago this summer ahead of the U.S. presidential election, a first for the party as it seeks to connect with voters beyond the reach of traditional media.

President Joe Biden's supporters are stepping up efforts to counter Republican former president Donald Trump's social media machine and viral videos in what polls show could be an extremely close race between two older and unpopular candidates.

They have work to do. While the Biden campaign has garnered over 383,000 followers since officially joining the short-video platform TikTok in February, Trump has accumulated 6.5 million since he joined on June 1.The Democratic National Convention Committee said influencers would cover the Aug. 19-22 event in new ways as the party formally nominates Biden to face a rematch against Trump.

"With Americans now consuming content and information in entirely new ways, the 2024 Democratic National Convention team is finding creative ways to tell our story to the American people," the DNC said in a statement.

Biden's main re-election funding vehicle, the Super PAC Future Forward USA Action, is raising millions of dollars to help him compete in the social media space and collaborate with left-leaning influencers to help generate new content, Reuters reported.

Many popular social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram have embraced short videos as their primary format.

But deceptively edited videos and fake accounts are a growing concern. Reuters reported in May that fake accounts posting about the Nov. 5 election are proliferating on X, formerly Twitter.

Trump campaign advisers have said he plans to target young men on TikTok with messages on inflation and other economic issues.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Trevor Hunnicutt; additional reporting by Jasper Ward; Editing by Kevin Liffey)