The time for choosing is tomorrow: The American people will head to the polls Tuesday to choose the next president of the United States. It has been a sprint to the finish for Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, and the former president has been on an all-out media blitz to make his closing pitch.
But these interviews have not been on news programs like “60 Minutes,” “Meet the Press,” or “Face the Nation” or conducted by corporate journalists such as Lesley Stahl, Anderson Cooper, or Lester Holt. Rather, Trump has appeared on shows called “All In,” “This Past Weekend,” “Full Send,” and “Bussin’ With The Boys.” The interviewers have been entrepreneurs, comedians, athletes—even a pro-wrestler.
Trump’s podcast appearances, mostly long-form interviews, are part of a broader media strategy by the Trump campaign that has the former president well positioned to win come Election Day. The effort is targeted at low-propensity, non-traditional Republican voters that the Trump campaign needs to turn out to the polls to carry the 2024 presidential election. And it appears that the blitz has managed to reach tens of millions of them.
Final polls have Trump and Harris neck and neck, nationally and in the seven crucial swing states needed to win the presidency. In national polling, RealClearPolling’s average has the race at virtually a dead heat with Trump up just 0.1%. RealClearPolling’s swing-state polling averages have Trump leading in Pennsylvania by 0.3%, Nevada by 1%, North Carolina by 1.5%, Georgia by 1.9%, and Arizona by 2.5%. Harris, meanwhile, has a 0.4% edge in Wisconsin and a 1.2% edge in Michigan.
Nevertheless, these final polls could potentially undercount Trump’s support yet again. This particularly applies to Trump’s level of support among seniors and some low-propensity voting demographics, specifically young men and black and Hispanic men.
Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement has remade the Republican Party from a suburbanite party to a party of the working class and their families.
Democrats, meanwhile, have leaned into their ties to cultural and financial elites. College graduates and women have followed the Democratic Party down that path. An increasing number of young men, union workers, and minority voters have lurched toward the GOP.
This is what many have called the realignment, which in some ways is an acceleration of latent trends that preceded the Trump era but the former president gave voice to during the 2016 presidential race. To turn out these voters, the Trump campaign decided to go to the media they consume, rather than hoping these low-propensity voters tune into interviews with corporate media outlets.
Taken together, Trump’s podcast interviews and show appearances have accumulated around 100 million views. Logan Paul’s “Impaulsive” interview with Trump has over 6.6 million views, the “All In Podcast” hosted by David Sacks and other entrepreneurs has over 3.4 million views, Andrew Schulz’s “Flagrant” episode with Trump has over 7 million views, and “This Past Weekend with Theo Von” has accumulated 14 million views.
The largest get for the Trump campaign’s alternative media strategy was an interview with comedian Joe Rogan on “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
The interview, which was released on Oct. 25, has nearly 45 million views on YouTube alone. Trump’s vice presidential pick, JD Vance, was also interviewed by Rogan. The Oct. 31 episode has nearly 15 million views. Vance has also been a guest on Von’s and other podcasts.
“Podcasts and other alternative media appearances gave us the opportunity to reach tens of millions of Americans who have been disaffected by the mainstream media and tuned out of the political process,” Trump campaign adviser Alex Bruesewitz, the architect of Trump’s alternative media strategy, told The Daily Signal. “Trump re-engaged them.”
Bruesewitz and others in the Trump campaign, such as communications director Steven Cheung, campaign advisers Danielle Alvarez and Brian Hughes, as well as the former president’s son, Barron Trump, have pushed Trump toward alternative media throughout the campaign.
Multiple, independent Trump campaign sources have told The Daily Signal that while the alternative media strategy of Trump’s campaign in 2024 has surely reached tens of millions of voters, the shows, clips, and social media posts have accrued billions of views and impressions.
“For the last eight years, Trump has been demonized by the corporate media. They have constantly taken his words out of context to try to paint a dark image of him,” Bruesewitz said. “That image never made sense to anyone who actually has the unique pleasure of knowing him.”
The alternative media strategy has taken aim at the somewhat common refrain, “I love Trump’s policies but don’t love Trump.”
“These podcasts gave President Trump the ability to showcase who he really is to tens of millions of Americans, and the more people heard from him in these formats, the more they liked him,” Bruesewitz told The Daily Signal.
Simply put, those closest to the former president see Trump’s personality and his view on the major issues as inseparable.
The rigorous media and campaign schedule have also compelled the Harris campaign to do more interviews as well. The peak of Harris’ campaign momentum was at the very beginning, when the vice president avoided the media for about a third of her time atop the Democratic ticket.
Trump’s momentum in the media, however, has pushed Harris to do interviews with major networks, such as her interview with “60 Minutes” that sparked controversy over apparently edited responses. Nevertheless, Harris has also been compelled to do podcast interviews of her own, namely an appearance on Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy.”
The divergent media strategies of the presidential campaigns have also raised the stakes for the American media landscape.
If Harris wins, the corporate media that’s propped up Harris’ cause even before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race will feel emboldened, and serious questions about the viability of alternative media ever posing a real threat to the corporate oligarch atop the media will percolate.
A Trump victory, however, could very well break the backs of the corporate media.
