In the world of politics, perception becomes reality. But when it comes to the prevailing wisdom about the 2016 presidential elections and their likely impact on the 2018 mid-term elections, perception more closely resembles fake news.
It has been widely reported that Hillary Clinton’s $1.2 billion campaign spent almost twice as much on paid media as the Trump campaign, including hundreds of millions more on television and other traditional media.
And, in stark contrast, the Trump campaign employed an unorthodox communications strategy that relied heavily on provocative messages to his 20 million Twitter followers—messages multiplied for free through enormous press coverage.
So, not surprisingly, as they face the 2018 elections, many political consultants conclude that social media is even more important and traditional media is on the way out.
But the facts don’t support this losing strategy.
First take a closer look at Trump’s nearly 30 million Twitter followers. According to Rob Salkowitz, writing for Forbes before the inauguration about Trump’s worldwide following, only about 3 million of his then 20-million followers were active domestic users. And even these are in reverse proportion to voters. The younger you are, the more likely you are to have a Twitter account, but the older you are, the more likely you are to vote. The turnout of eligible millennial voters rarely reaches 50 percent. Seniors, on the other hand, frequently exceed 70 percent.
A recent Pew Research study of social media reported that only 18 percent of voters 50 to 64 years old and less that 7 percent of voters older than 65 every use Twitter. Why is this important? Because together these demographic groups represent more than 45 percent of all votes cast in 2016 and with the number of Baby Boomers reaching 65 growing by 10,000 per day, seniors are likely to form an even larger share of the 2018 midterm election.
Social media also has a huge Achilles heel. While smartphones seem omnipresent in our society, the correlation with voters is much more problematic.
In a April 2016 study of the political landscape, Nielson/ Scarborough found that although smartphone ownership among those 18 to 34 years was nearly 90 percent, only half of all Americans 50 years and older own a smartphone and the number fell to 24 percent for those over 65. Extrapolate the number and the bottom line is almost one-third of all voters do not even own a smartphone. No wonder they aren’t using social media.
And then there is issue of apples and oranges. Midterm elections have been, and will always be, unlike presidential-year elections in many respects. Where voters get their political information is no exception.
The national media cannot report on local elections with the same intensity as they do presidential. Even in the 34 states where there will be Senate races, the issuesmay be national but the media doing the reporting will be local. Campaigns and Elections magazine, the leading trade journal of political professionals, recently reported, “Local broadcast TV advertising will be critical in 2018 elections.” Why? Because local broadcast TV reaches far more voters than any other platform. Perhaps an even bigger shock to many younger political operatives is the power of newspaper. Local newspapers reach 64 percent of registered voters. That’s over 122 million voters each week. Even legacy postal mail will be a major part of both fundraising and message delivery in the 2018 election.
There is little new to learn from the 2016 election that translates to the upcoming 2018 elections. Political professionals—many already predisposed to discount traditional media—should be careful in seeking to emulate the Trump effect or in drawing any useable conclusions from it.
No candidate in any election at any level can hope to win without first achieving high name recognition. Love him or hate him, everyone but Maxine Waters knows Donald Trump is president of the United States. But he wasn’t always a household name. The public first became aware of him through New York newspapers and glossy magazine and later on network television. Without the brand he built through traditional media, Trump would never have become the king of social media. And what he says on social media today would not be amplified without traditional media. So perhaps, just perhaps, 2018 might be the year for all politicians to be just a little less social.
Tom Edmonds is a veteran Republican political media consultant. He is a past president of the International Association of Political Consultants.
