Harris Missed the Podcast Era: A Campaign Lesson for 2028
The Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) podcast is the most popular podcast in the world. A large part of the audience of JRE is young men - a key voting demographic in the last election. Trump and Harris both had the opportunity to go on JRE. However, only Trump went on JRE. In the 3-hour-long episode, Trump candidly answered personal questions, told new stories, and spoke more in-depth about his political perspectives. The episode received over 50M views just on YouTube.
There’s been a lot of post-election discussion about “in hindsight.” It’s easy to look back and say that it was a mistake that Harris didn’t do JRE - she, too, could have had the opportunity to get in front of millions of listeners.
But, Harris would have been going into a long-form interview with fewer prep weeks before an incredibly close election. What if she didn't articulate a point correctly? What if a quote was taken out of context and spread virally across the internet? What if she fell into a trap in the interview?
The mistake wasn’t that Harris didn’t go on one podcast. The mistake was that Harris and her team carried out her campaign like past campaigns: they didn’t zoom out to understand which audience they wanted to connect with and how to best get in front of them.
Harris and her team didn’t even consider podcasts as a channel to connect with target voter demographics. Had they, they would have proactively scheduled and prepared for the interview months ago. Instead, Harris and her team fell mostly into the ways that campaigns ran in the past.
In 1952, 40M Americans owned TVs. Eisenhower and his team leveraged TV ads, while Stevenson stuck to more traditional forms of campaigning, such as events and the press. TV ads allowed Eisenhower to convey more “warmth and integrity” to voters than words in a newspaper could.
In 2008, 100M Americans had Facebook accounts. Obama and his team leveraged social media while McCain continued to lean on traditional media such as TV - like the campaigns of their past. Social media marketing allowed Obama to speak to a larger audience while also tailoring his message to more niche, subset audiences at scale.
In 2024, 135M Americans listen to podcasts. Trump appeared or was mentioned on 5.8x as many podcasts as Harris, helping him build more familiarity and trust with a larger audience.
If history repeats itself, expect to see the politicians hitting the podcast circuits in 2028. However, like TV ads and Facebook, podcasts will eventually fade into tactics used for campaigns of the past because a new medium will arise that will better connect politicians with their target audience.
The victor will be the one that doesn’t follow an outlined formal campaign but zooms out:
What are the audiences that we are trying to connect with? Where is their attention?
What new platforms or tech advancements have been introduced or grown in the last 4+ years?
What hurdles does a candidate need to address (i.e., establish warmth and integrity or build familiarity and trust) with our target audience? Then, what are ways that can help communicate that with the target audience?
