The attempted assassination of Donald Trump has sparked a significant shift in public discourse surrounding his candidacy. Following the incident, the Democratic Party suspended its ad campaigns against him and politicians from different political backgrounds condemned the attack. Exclusive data shared with Forbes reveals the impact of this event on TikTok, one of the most important platforms for discussions about the upcoming election. In the week after the assassination attempt, the number of posts about Trump on TikTok increased by nearly 800%, with views of those videos jumping from 1 billion to 6 billion. Interestingly, while most posts about Trump were critical before the shooting, the posts afterwards portrayed him in a more positive light.
However, the surge in support for Trump was short-lived as TikTok users soon shifted their focus to President Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race and Vice President Kamala Harris’s entrance into the political scene. This led to a sharp decline in sentiment towards President Trump, although it did not return to pre-shooting levels. The data provided by a TikTok analytics firm called Zelf captures these rapid changes in the political landscape, offering valuable insights into the digital discourse surrounding the election and key candidates like Harris.
In addition to tracking individual candidates, Zelf also monitors discussions on various political topics such as inflation, immigration, and climate change on TikTok. The data from the past 15 days indicates that TikTok users prefer Biden’s stance on gun control over Trump’s, but favor Trump’s position on inflation. Surprisingly, certain issues like Project 2025 and the war in Israel and Palestine have not been prominent topics of conversation on TikTok recently. Instead, discussions about the fitness of Biden and Trump to serve as President have dominated the platform, with negative sentiment towards Biden outweighing positive content on other issues.
Zelf collects its data by analyzing the total number of videos related to a topic on TikTok and gathering stats on each video, including views, likes, and comments. The company relies on a TikTok “relevancy” metric to identify videos with high engagement levels, allowing them to capture up to 85% of the total engagement on a given topic. Zelf uses Net Promoter Scores to assess the positivity or negativity of discourse around a specific topic, with scores indicating the level of engagement with positive versus negative content. These scores are a valuable tool for understanding how different topics and candidates are perceived on TikTok.
The data provided by Zelf offers valuable insights for political campaigns and researchers looking to understand the impact of TikTok on public discourse. As social media companies limit transparency tools that provide visibility into conversations online, Zelf’s data becomes increasingly important for monitoring and analyzing trends on platforms like TikTok. With TikTok’s significant influence on U.S. audiences, tracking discourse on the platform could complement traditional campaign analytics like polling and focus groups, shaping campaign strategies at both the national and local levels.
As tech companies restrict access to data that could shed light on online conversations, Zelf’s data fills an important gap in understanding how social media platforms influence public discourse. In light of recent changes by platforms like Meta and Twitter to limit transparency tools, Zelf’s data offers a critical resource for journalists, researchers, and political campaigns seeking to navigate the ever-evolving digital landscape. By providing valuable insights into TikTok discourse, Zelf’s data has the potential to shape how candidates are perceived and campaigns are run in the digital age.
