During the 2020 United States presidential election, many viewers turned to alternate sources of coverage. Networks like ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and Fox provided around the clock coverage of the election, but streaming sites like YouTube and Twitch experienced increased viewership during election week. On election day, viewers watched a total of 50.7 million hours of coverage across Twitch and YouTube.
Twitch is a streaming platform that features many categories, but is primarily used for video games. During the election, many more viewers were tuning into live streams for election updates, and during the presidential debate on October 22nd, viewers watched 305,000 hours of coverage according to data gathered by Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet. Political commentator and former host of The Young Turks Hasan Piker gathered 34% of viewership during the debate. Piker maintained his spot as the top streamer on Twitch during the week of the election.
During the US presidential debate, YouTube viewership was dominated by large media networks, with ABC, C-Span, Fox, CNN, and CBS gathering over 66% of the total 10.2 million hours watched. More people tuned into the official debate coverage on ABC, however, viewership favored NBC on election day coverage.
During election day on Twitch, Hasan Piker dominated viewership with 2.5 million hours watched, which was nearly 75% of all Twitch viewership that day. Piker is a consistent streamer on Twitch, but his continued coverage of the US election boosted him into the top spot during this time. Piker was also included in the Among Us Twitch stream that featured prominent streamers like Pokimane and DrLupo, and politicians Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar.
AOC's stream gathered over 4.5 million views and reached 435,000 concurrent viewers, nearly breaking Twitch records. With Twitch and YouTube viewership drastically rising during the election, it proves more people are using alternate streaming platforms and paying attention to politics on their favorite platforms. More politicians are using video games and streaming platforms to connect to their supporters.
There are many examples of politicians using video games as a ways to relate to their supporters. AOC has perhaps been the most involved by streaming Among Us and previously sharing her rank and mains in League of Legends. The presidential candidates have also used streaming platforms and video games in their campaign. President-elect Joe Biden used Animal Crossing: New Horizons to virtually campaign, and both candidates launched Twitch channels in order to share information with their supporters. As these streaming platforms get more and more popular, it would not be surprising to see more integration with politics.
Source: Streamlabs Blog