Obama makes TikTok appearances to push for voter registration: report

Former President Obama will make appearances on TikTok to push for voter registration, a report says. 

As part of a broader Democratic initiative to reach approximately 30 million potential voters through non-traditional means on National Voter Registration Day, Obama conducted a series of interviews with 25-year-old TikTok influencer and non-profit director Carlos Espina for TikTok, Axios reported. 

Espina, who has 10.5 million followers on the Chinese-owned platform, has made appearances with President Biden and Vice President Harris on the app in recent months. Playing into the traditional Democratic advantage among young Americans under 30, Obama is trying to move the dial for Harris in encouraging TikTok viewers to visit IWillVote.com, register and make a plan for Election Day. 

The Harris-Walz campaign is also planning to target young Americans with voter registration initiatives online and on campuses in key battleground states for National Voter Registration Day, Axios reported. 

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Barack Obama poses for a selfie during the Friday Four Ball of the first round of the 2024 Solheim Cup on Sept.13, 2024, in Gainesville, Virginia.  (Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

The Biden campaign and the Harris campaign afterward have called on Obama in the past to help raise money among wealthy donors and small-donor party activists. The Harris campaign also pulled a portion of Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention during which he used a suggestive hand gesture while discussing former President Trump’s “crowd sizes” to use in a recent campaign video. 

The voter registration push comes a day after attorneys for TikTok faced off with the U.S. government in federal court in Washington, D.C., arguing a law that could ban the platform in a few short months is unconstitutional, while the Justice Department said the app needed to eliminate a national security risk. 

Attorneys for both sides – and content creators – were pressed on their best arguments for and against the law that forces TikTok and its China-based parent company ByteDance to break ties by mid-January or lose one of their biggest markets in the world. 

The TikTok Inc. building is seen in Culver City, Calif., on March 17, 2023.  (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

Biden signed the measure in April as the culmination of a years-long saga in Washington over the short-form video-sharing app, which the U.S. government has said is collecting vast swaths of user data, including sensitive information on viewing habits, that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government. 

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Officials have also warned the proprietary algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content in a way that is difficult to detect.

Barack Obama speaks during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, on Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024.  (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trump, who first raised national security concerns about TikTok in 2020, warned allies in March that now banning the platform would benefit Meta-owned Facebook, which Trump has claimed hampered his 2020 re-election bid.

Biden’s campaign joined TikTok in February with a Superbowl-themed video. After Biden discontinued his re-election campaign in July, Harris took to TikTok stating, “Thought I would get on here myself.” 

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Trump joined TikTok in June with a video showing him waving to fans at an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fight in Newark, New Jersey. UFC CEO Dana White declared “the president is now on TikTok,” to which Trump replied, “It’s my honor,” as the song “American Bad A–” by Kid Rock played. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.