Jen Psaki assures Joe Biden supporters they have no reason to “freak out” about the frequency Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and his other political rivals trend on social media, saying, “That alone does not win elections.”
In the MSNBC host’s Sunday blog, she said that there is an “incorrect perception that Joe Biden and his team are bad at digital,” basically because Trump’s tweets since the 2020 primary and now on Truth Social are “so outlandish (and inaccurate) many observers thought he was outshining and outflanking Biden.” Not true, Psaki said.
“The truth is the Biden campaign actually outraised the Trump team in online small-donation donors in 2020 while creating a massive digital organizing apparatus that was more focused on person-to-person organizing than viral tweets,” Psaki wrote.
According to DeSantis’ team, the Florida governor raised $8.2 million within 24 hours of announcing he was throwing his hat into the 2024 presidential race, per the The New York Times, and more than doubled the $4 million Trump’s team said it raised within 24 hours after his criminal indictment in March. The Times added that, in contrast, Biden raised $6.3 million in his first 24 hours as a candidate in 2019.
“But more importantly, as Trump fought legal battles and was kicked off various social media platforms, the Biden team kept building. This is not just about online fundraising or online ads. TikTok (love it or hate it) doesn’t even allow political advertising,” Psaki continued. “Biden is building an online organization that engages with supporters and encourages them to talk to one another.”
Technology doesn’t seem to be DeSantis’ friend. His presidential campaign launch earlier this week on Twitter Spaces had more than a few hiccups, as the platform went completely offline before he even had a chance to speak. At its height, the Twitter Spaces room appeared to have 650,000 listeners and counting, an overload that a flustered Elon Musk, who was hosting the event to his 140.8 million followers, called “massive” while trying to explain away the delay 15 minutes in.
Then the following day during an interview on the conservative cable news channel Newsmax, the video froze of DeSantis with his mouth pursed mid-word.
You can read Jen Psaki’s entire message here.
