Election 2024: the fight for Gen Z's vote is closing in on TikTok — but could the platform really swing it?

“TikTok could definitely sway an election,” says social media expert and former Conservative Party campaign strategist Sean Topham. He would know. During the last election campaign in 2019, Topham was described as a “digital mastermind” after his team at creative agency Topham Guerin came up with the idea to rename the Conservative Party’s press Twitter account to “Fact Check UK” and use it to dispute claims and campaign promises made by Jeremy Corbyn. 

Many didn’t initially realise it was the Conservatives behind the account, so took Fact Check UK’s word as unbiased gospel. Regardless of the moral element — which sparked plenty of debate — it was a smart and completely novel technique, and clearly the work of a person born into the internet age. 

Now, in 2024, Twitter techniques have gone out of the window, and social media managers in their 20s sit and make TikToks in campaign offices, hoping to swing an election. The three main, Conservative and the Liberal Democrats, joined TikTok within a week of Rishi Sunak announcing a , while others — including ’s Reform UK party — have existed on the platform for longer.