Did Trump just win the election based on a podcast?

Now, this might sound like a seriously grandiose claim and you might be thinking “sure James, of course you’re going to think that, you’re the Podcast guy” but hear me out on this one.

Only a couple of weeks ago, the 45th President of the United States appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast which is the biggest show on the planet.

In fact, if you look at his stats, facts and figures he eclipses a whole bunch of mainstream media by a significant magnitude.

It is estimated that Joe’s pod reaches between 100–190 Million people every single month — compare that to some of the biggest ‘traditional’ media outlets inc. The Washington Post (Monthly Digital Reach: Estimated around 90 million visitors), MSNBC (Daily Viewership: Average of 1–2 million viewers for its most popular shows), NBC Nightly News (Daily Viewership: Typically averages 7–8 million viewer), Fox Business (Daily Viewership: Averages under 1 million viewers).

As you can see, with the reach of The Joe Rogan Experience vs the incumbent media giants, it is no wonder why this show has such a wide-reaching and meaningful impact.

In fact, Newsweek recently published an article that highlighted that Trump had not enjoyed a positive sentiment on the ‘Impact Social Tracker’ (which is an exclusive poll of 40,000 respondents) since 2020… until his appearance on Rogan a few weeks ago!

There is obviously a huge debate around the journalistic integrity of some of the conversations that Joe Rogan has but that argument could probably be levelled at any — and every — mainstream media outlet depending on the political slant through which you choose to see the world, I guess.

I listened to the whole interview and I have to say that the conversation, whether you like Trump or not, really did give you an insight into his personality, his thoughts, his feelings and gave you a great sense of what his politics truly stems from.

Now, I am not going to get political — God knows we don’t need another amateur analyst shooting their mouth off — and I am also not qualified to comment on the state of American politics either — but what I can comment on is how much of an impact that I believe that appearing on that one single show actually had.

If you look at the number of downloads that Rogan gets — and lets assume the lower end of the spectrum — it is around 100 Million. Then let’s look at how many people actually turned up to vote in this election which seems like it is around an 65% of eligible voters which equates to around 160 Million people, so you can very easily see that if this huge podcast audience changed their opinion — even just a tiny percentage of them — then it could have had a very real and very deep impact on the outcome of this election.

A lot of media analysts are saying that the Rogan show most definitely effected the outcome of the hard-fought swing states.

Obviously, politicians — whether it be this side of the pond or in the US — go on the PR trail when they are looking to run for Office. Traditionally, as it was back in my day when I first started my media career in PR, the politicians would appear on all the big TV and radio shows and they would have a very short conversation (usually around seven minutes if you look at standard interview times) in which they get to try and communicate their core messages and highlight to the audience the objectives of their run for power.

But, in the Joe Rogan podcast example, Trump chatted away for over three hours!

How much of a difference does it make when someone knows they have 3 hours to weave a narrative to their advantage!? Also, let’s not forget that, as it stands right now, podcasting is not subject to the same rules and regulations as mainstream media. For example, here in the UK, Ofcom regulations actually stipulate what can and can’t be said on the radio during an election period. It is actually not allowed for a radio presenter or TV host to show a political sway in either direction.

That’s just not the case in podcasting, as you could quite clearly hear on Joe Rogan‘s podcast.

It was quite obvious from the interview which way Joe‘s politics lean towards but, to his credit, I think he did a very good job of asking tough questions, holding Trump to account on certain subjects and ultimately really pushing and pressing him on what a difference the president would be willing and able to make once he is in office.

He also really got into the heart of what I’ve perceived to be a big shift in the openness around politics.

For example, when Trump was talking about what he had found in the JFK files and also what the outcome of the Russian ballot scandal had meant it was very telling.

Now, of course, I am a big proponent of podcasting and the power of this amazingly open medium, so I am bound to say that the outcome of this election had something to do with the Podcast.

I am biased on podcasting, unashamedly so, but if you look a little bit closer to home, the power of podcasts on politics is also clear.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer appeared on a number of key podcasts which I also truly believe gave people the opportunity to build an element of ‘know, like and trust’ before they headed to the polls earlier this year.

There was a particularly poignant moment in a podcast he did with High Performance Podcast which probably did more to humanise him than anything else that his PR team could’ve mustered in any other media formats.

So in essence, whichever side of the blue/red line you sit, I think it is unfeasible to deny the power of podcasting as it stands right now and I am really excited to see how this less influenced, less controlled, less monitored and largely independent media increases in its impact to create change.