Harris' laugh, Trump as a teenage girl: Viral candidate impersonators weigh in on election comedy

Through this tumultuous election season, TikTok has given us viral dances to campaign slogans remixed with a beat. It has also given us a good laugh or two, driven in part by comedians who use the platform to add humor to a contentious presidential race.

A growing share of adults in the U.S. get their news from TikTok, according to a Pew Research Center analysis published in September that showed nearly 40% of young adults get regular news on the short-video platform.

Both Donald Trump's and Kamala Harris' campaigns have leaned into TikTok to reach audiences online, even as the app's Chinese ownership has become a political issue in its own right. Trump joined TikTok in June, and Harris' nascent presidential campaign was given a big boost by fan edit compilations on the app.

Another group tapping into the widespread reach of TikTok? Comedians.

While many waited to see who would play the election's main characters on "Saturday Night Live," some people have been doing their own bits for months or even years in viral TikTok videos.

USA TODAY talked to three TikTok creators who impersonate this election's top candidates. They shared their belief that political comedy should make a statement and spoke about their approaches to their skits. This is a behind-the-scenes look at what those who have abandoned traditional news outlets for social media snippets may be seeing instead.

Presidential election polls 2024: Latest surveys on Harris vs. Trump with 5 days to go

Kamala Harris' laugh, 'n'kay?' Meet comedian Allison Reese

You may recognize Allison Reese, a comedian living in Los Angeles, from before this election. She started doing an impression of Harris in 2019 when the vice president was first running for federal office.

"I do impressions and stuff, and rarely do I get the chance to do that for somebody who looks like me, especially in the political realm," she told USA TODAY in an interview. When Harris became vice president during the pandemic, Reese kept up the act. Now, she has more than 315,000 followers on TikTok alone.

Most of her skits feature her take on Harris' laugh and phrases strung together by a rhetorical "n'kay?"

But her impressions took on a new significance when President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and Harris had just more than three months to try to convince the country to elect her as the next president.

"I just didn't ever really think that it would be like this ... and the weight of that ... I take it very seriously," Reese said. "I really try to not punch down. I really want to be punching up whenever I'm doing things."

Reese remembered "SNL" skits about Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton having a big impact on people's perceptions about them. She said her views of Harris as the competent one in the room come through in her impressions, even as she riffs on some of Harris' quirkier moments and efforts to get middle-ground voters.

"You're supposed to provide counterculture. That doesn't mean being offensive. That means, like, posing in opposition to what we see," Reese said.

'Trump was born to be a teenage girl' by a teenage girl

Kiera Nusbaum has amassed more than 110,000 followers on TikTok for skits where she lip-syncs to Trump's own words, often with the caption, "Trump was born to be a teenage girl." One of her videos has nearly 22 million views.

Nusbaum herself is a teenage girl. A 17-year-old freshman at a private college in Southern California, she will miss being old enough to vote by mere days. Even so, she said she has been paying attention to politics since 2020.

"Since I can't vote, I feel like this platform is, like, the next best thing that I can do to, like, make an impact," Nusbaum told USA TODAY.

She said she made the first video after watching the presidential debate with her classmates. She found Trump to be immature and kept thinking it would make for a good skit, but she wasn't expecting it to go viral or become her platform at all.

Now, after her morning class, she puts on the red, feathery robe, scrolls through comments suggesting new Trump lines to imitate and films the videos in her dorm room. Nusbaum said some of her followers are Trump supporters, and she hopes her videos bring humor to political discussions to find a middle ground in a polarized climate.

"When it reaches that audience, I just hope that they're able to acknowledge, like, the hypocrisy in condemning teenage girls' behavior when it's reflected in the person that they idolize," Nusbaum said. "I just hope that it can be seen with ... some sort of nuance towards just the irony of the situation."

JD Vance has extreme eyeliner and extreme politics in Sam Wiles' videos

Sam Wiles is a comedian living in Los Angeles. He said he doesn't consider himself an impersonator, but he does consider himself a politics junkie and a JD Vance lookalike. Wiles' TikTok account, with more than 60,000 followers, features skits of Vance with thick eyeliner and touting out-there political suggestions.

Wiles told USA TODAY he read Vance's book "Hillbilly Elegy" and followed Vance's political trajectory after the book's success. When Vance was selected as Trump's running mate over the summer, Wiles found social media videos as a good medium to run comedy skits about the Republican.

"I just was trying to write stand up about him, because I, like, find him so detestable," Wiles said.

Despite many viral moments from Vance throughout this campaign, Wiles doesn't watch his news coverage too closely, but instead writes his own skits.

"I kinda go off vibes a lot...it's more fun to live in a world where, like, he's a little dumber and a little less slick," Wiles said.

Like Nusbaum and Reese, Wiles says political comedy should be political, but he isn't sure if his videos will have a broader impact than giving people a laugh.

What else to know about the 2024 presidential election

Speaking of comedy, a comedian kicked up controversy in the final week of the campaigns. Tony Hinchcliffe, known as "Kill Tony," called Puerto Rico a "floating pile of garbage" at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden last month. It caused criticism from both sides of the aisle and cost Trump at least one endorsement. Biden also came under fire for appearing to call Trump supporters "garbage" while condemning the comedian.

In a presidential race that polls repeatedly show as a toss-up, every moment matters.

Trump and Harris have been busy campaigning in the swing states with just days out until the election. Due to the country's Electoral College system, the race is likely to be decided by which way Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada and Arizona vote.

USA TODAY has also compiled the most consequential elections around the country outside of the presidency. Follow along for election news.

Kinsey Crowley is a trending news reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected], and follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kamala Harris, Donald Trump content creators share their election views