Biden Campaign Joins Trump’s Truth Social for ‘Fun,’ Gets Ratioed

The president’s team said they thought it would be ‘funny’ to join his rival’s social media platform.
Biden Campaign Joins Trump’s Truth Social for ‘Fun,’ Gets Ratioed
Ahead of the first Republican debate in Milwaukee, The Biden-Harris 2024 Campaign and Democratic National Committee launches billboards, a plane banner and a mobile billboard truck highlighting positions of Republicans and President Biden's accomplishments on Aug. 23, 2023 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for DNC
Samantha Flom
Updated:
0:00

President Joe Biden’s campaign team launched a new account Monday on the last platform anyone would have expected them to use—former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social.

“Well. Let’s see how this goes,” the Biden-Harris HQ account wrote in its first post. “Converts welcome!”

The stream of posts that followed included clips of other GOP presidential hopefuls criticizing President Trump—the clear front-runner for the party’s nomination—and a post asserting his “long record of lying to auto workers.”

In a post to the Biden campaign’s X account, the president’s team said they joined Truth Social “mostly because we thought it would be very funny.”
Campaign officials elaborated on the move in an interview with Fox News prior to the launch, saying they had hopes of “meeting voters where they are.”

“Republicans can’t even agree on a Speaker of the House, so clearly, not every Republican thinks the same,” they told the outlet, adding that they intended to combat “mis- and disinformation” on Truth Social.

“There’s very little ‘truth’ happening on Truth Social, but at least now it’ll be a little fun,” a senior campaign aide said.

The launch has definitely met one of the Biden campaign’s goals; now supporters of the two campaigns are exchanging views.

Within three hours of its first “truth,” the account had amassed just over 4,500 followers, and nearly all of its posts had been “ratioed”—meaning they received more replies than likes or reposts.

The replies were about as complimentary as one might expect on a platform dominated by President Trump’s supporters.

Presidential Race

The 45th president launched Truth Social in February 2022, just over a year after his expulsion from Twitter (now X) following the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.

Although his X account was restored by the platform’s new owner, Elon Musk, last November, President Trump has only posted there once in the months since.

“Election Interference. Never Surrender!” he wrote on Aug. 24 following his arrest in Fulton County, Georgia, in connection with his protest of the 2020 election results. The message also included his mug shot, which he has since used to raise funds toward his election campaign.

President Trump has held a commanding lead over the rest of the GOP presidential field for the entirety of the primary season. But recent polling suggests that he is also beating the incumbent president with voters in key swing states.

According to a Redfield and Wilton Strategies poll conducted Oct. 7–9, President Trump is favored by 5 points each in Arizona (44-39), Florida (44-39), and North Carolina (43-38). The poll also shows him winning Georgia by 3 points, tying in Michigan, and losing by 1 point in Pennsylvania.

Notably, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was included as an independent candidate, the former president was projected to win all but one of the six states, with Pennsylvania’s race shifting to a neck-and-neck tie between the 45th and 46th presidents at 39 percent each.

When the poll was conducted, Mr. Kennedy had yet to announce his third-party bid. On Oct. 9, he announced his departure from the Democratic Party and his candidacy as an independent with a speech in Philadelphia. Within hours of that speech, his campaign raked in more than $11 million.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Samantha Flom
Samantha Flom
Author
Samantha Flom is a reporter for The Epoch Times covering U.S. politics and news. A graduate of Syracuse University, she has a background in journalism and nonprofit communications. Contact her at [email protected].
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