Let's Talk About Joe Biden and Donald Trump's Emails

Joe Biden and Donald Trump both send a lot of emails.

But how many they send, and the content of their email programs, is vastly different.

I reviewed 20 emails from each of the two campaigns (they were the most recent 20 emails from a random moment in time – Friday, May 17th at 10:45am central).

Here are some of my findings.

According to the Archive of Political Emails (where I pulled all of these emails), Joe Biden’s campaign sends an average of 1.7 emails per day.

Donald Trump’s campaign, on the other hand, sends an average of 10.6 emails per day.

THAT IS NOT A TYPO!

Donald Trump’s campaign sends ~10x more emails per day than Joe Biden!!!

If you are wondering, that is not normal!

Let’s look at their senders

Joe Biden had 10 unique senders for his 20 emails. But mostly, they were just different ways of saying they had come from the campaign.

Four came directly from Joe Biden.

Two came from JoeBiden.com.

One came from Jill Biden and two from Barack Obama.

The rest came from Biden HQ, Team Joe, Team Biden-Harris, Biden-Harris Merch Team, The Biden Campaign and Biden 2024.

Donald Trump had nine unique senders for his 20 emails. But of the nine, six were just different ways of saying Donald Trump.

One was from Donald Trump directly.

Six were from Donald J. Trump.

Two were from I AM DONALD TRUMP (caps his).

One was from “President Trump – Emergency Broadcast” (this one was about him breaking his “unconstitutional ‘gag order’” and declaring that a “liberal judge in New York just threatened to THROW ME IN JAIL”).

And one more was from ALERT FROM TRUMP (again, all caps his).

The remaining emails came from Eric Trump, Lara Trump and three from Donald Trump, Jr.

Let’s look at the email domains they used to send their emails

Here things get interesting.

According to the Archive, all of Joe Biden’s emails came from info@joebiden.com, or the subdomain info@contact.joebiden.com.

This is normal. Typically, no matter how often a campaign emails, all of their emails come from a single sender/domain. This is best practice to let Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, et al know that you are a legitimate organization, not a spammer looking to get through those spam filters.

I reviewed other power senders in the Archive’s database (including the DCCC, John Fetterman, AOC, Ruben Gallego, Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley) and while a few of them used more than one domain, it was generally clear that the switch was due to website updates or some minor deviation. I saw nothing out of the ordinary.

This is not the case with the Trump campaign, who, since the summer of 2019 (when the Archive started their tracking), have sent campaign emails from the following domains:

contact@victory.donaldtrump.com
contact@team.donaldtrump.com
contact@victoryacrossamerica.gop.com
email@usa.buildingourmovement.com
support@theamericanvoter.com
noreply@email.donaldtrump.com
supporting@ourpresident45.com
JKoons@Trumpvictory.com
info@mail.secureconservative.com
donaldjtrump@theoffice45.com
contact@win.donaldjtrump.com
contact@email.donaldjtrump.com
desk@deskofdonaldjtrump.com
contact@mail.saveamerica45.com
gopvictory@saveamericamajority.com
contact@email.saveamerica45.com
contact@m.trumpstore.com
contact@deskofdonaldjtrump.com
contact@e.saveamerica45.com
contact@send.saveamerica45.com
contact@mail.donaldjtrump.com
contact@email.donaldtrump.com
contact@info.donaldjtrump.com
contact@trump.winwith45.com
info@win.donaldjtrump.com
contact@trump-emails.com
contact@support.donaldjtrump.com
contact@victory.donaldjtrump.com
contact@email.trumpvictory45.com

Why might a campaign do something like this?

I asked Josh Bartley, Co-Founder of Campaign Deputy about it. Here’s what he had to say:

There are some legitime reasons for an organization to use multiple domains. Separating out by brands, or products, though in the political space it’s mostly [called] snowshoeing.

Political organizations typically have one email domain they send from, while some larger groups may have one dedicated to donors while keeping their GSuite domain reputation on a separate domain. After that, it starts to get into “Snowshoeing” which spreads your email activity over numerous domain names to try and stay under the radar of spam filters due to the much lower volume per a domain. Having 5+ domains sending is a clear sign of snowshoeing.

This also hurts educating email recipients on detecting fraudulent emails as they are used to frequently changing domain names. BIMI helps with that though no one using a snowshoeing technique will ever sign up for BIMI.

I added the emphasis, because it’s obviously pretty dang important.

The Donald Trump campaign is sending on average 10+ emails a day. In the process, they are doing everything they can — legitimate or otherwise — to avoid spam filters.

This is not a sign of a healthy email program.

General Themes and Takeaways

Beyond the health of the program, let’s dig into the themes and takeaways.

Donald Trump really likes stylized pictures and graphics in his emails.

I say stylized pictures because it’s never just a photo. It’s always a graphic, with a photo in it.

Every single email has at least one.

Joe Biden on the other hand sends emails that are more text-heavy, and opts for photos over graphics.

I will caveat that this is a place where a 20 email sample size felt quite small. I’ve seen wonderful graphics from the Biden campaign throughout their program. But in the 20 emails I reviewed for this analysis, it was mostly text-based emails, with a few photos, a few GIFs and one chart.

The average word count of a Donald Trump email is 131.05 compared to 210.45 for a Biden email.

Biden’s emails are mostly focused on fundraising, merch or the debate.

Donald Trump’s emails are mostly focused on fundraising, surveys, merch, signing his birthday card and getting advice about his VP pick. Also, on him being gagged and silenced by the Democrats of course.

I did a pronoun analysis.

Joe Biden’s email program used the word “I” 27 times and the word “me” 7 times.
Donald Trump on the other hand used the word “I” 58 times and the word “me” 63 times.

Biden used “we” 87 times compared to Trump using it only 10 times.

Biden used “you” 79 times compared to Trump using it 60 times.

Biden used “us” or “our” 119 times, compared to Trump using them 101 times.

And while Biden’s emails only referenced “they” or “them” once, Trump’s emails referenced “they” or “them” 15 times.

Biden’s emails mentioned “Biden” 36 times and “Trump” 47 times.

Trump’s emails mentioned “Biden” 15 times and “Trump” 70 times.

It was quite clear that while Joe Biden’s emails are very focused on “you,” “we,” “us” and “our,” Donald Trump’s emails are very focused on… Donald Trump.

Issues Mentioned In Their Emails

While both programs are quite focused on fundraising, merch and the like, there were also some clear policies and issues laid out.

The Biden campaign spoke about protecting democracy, healthcare, reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, the economy and infrastructure.

The Trump campaign on the other hand was focused on the real issues that matter, like defending Donald Trump from his many legal issues, calling Democrats corrupt, taking on the media and, of course, railing against the Deep State.

What Does ChatGPT Think About The Two Campaigns?

While I, a human, conducted my own analysis, this is 2024. So of course I had to ask AI to weigh in on these two programs.

So I fed all of these emails into ChatGPT and tried mightily to get it to give me anything interesting and worth sharing.

For the most part, it fell flat.

It’s programmed to be positive, and clearly isn’t interested in stirring the pot.

I asked it for sentiment analyses.

Here’s what I got for Joe Biden:

“Based on the sentiment analysis, the Biden campaign emails vary in tone from optimistic and determined to urgent and concerned, with a primary focus on fundraising and mobilizing grassroots support. Thematic breakdowns include small donations, grassroots support, debate challenges, merchandise promotions, and urgent fundraising appeals.”

Versus what I got for Donald Trump:

“Based on the sentiment analysis, the Trump campaign emails vary in tone from confident and positive to urgent and alarmed, with a primary focus on rallying support, engaging the audience, and fundraising. Thematic breakdowns include endorsements, birthday cards, VP selection, merchandise promotions, defense team formation, and surveys to gauge support.”

I asked it to rate both programs’ level of hopefulness, on a scale of 0-100. Biden got 70 to Trump’s 65. I asked it to do the same for level of desperation and it gave Biden a 45 to Trump’s 35.

I asked it to sum up each program in one word.

Joe Biden got “Inclusive” and Donald Trump got “Defiant.”

It elaborated (because that’s what it does):

“Joe Biden Campaign – Inclusive: The Biden campaign emails focus heavily on unity, grassroots support, and collective action, emphasizing inclusivity and a broad coalition of supporters.

Donald Trump Campaign – Defiant: The Trump campaign emails are characterized by a strong, assertive, and often combative tone, rallying supporters to stand firm against perceived adversaries and challenges.”

I had to try a few ways to get it to give me an answer, but I asked it, based solely on these emails, who would be a better lunch date. It split the difference 🙃

“If [you] value a warm, empathetic, and policy-oriented conversation, Joe Biden might be the better choice. His emails suggest a more personal and inclusive approach, which could make for a thoughtful and engaging lunch.

If [you] prefer a high-energy, assertive, and bold personality, Donald Trump might be the better choice. His emails suggest a dynamic and lively conversation, focusing on leadership and defiance against opposition.

Ultimately, it depends on [your] personal preferences and what kind of conversation [you] are looking for.”

Ummm… thanks?

Finally, struggling to get anything interesting out of it, I asked “If these two candidates were characters from Seinfeld, who would each of them be?”

According to ChatGPT, Joe Biden would be Seinfeld, while Donald Trump would be George Constanza.

BOOM!

I then asked it the same question but about Succession.

According to ChatGPT, Joe Biden would be Logan Roy, while Donald Trump would be Kendall.

DOUBLE BOOM!!

While I’ve never watched Sex and The City, I figured it might be a helpful way to get to the heart of these two candidates.

According to ChatGPT, Biden’s a Carrie, while Trump’s a Samantha.

DAY-UMMMM!!!!

While ChatGPT worked hard not to say anything, in the end, it kind of said it all!

Have any questions for me (or ChatGPT) about these two email programs?

Drop them in the comments or hit me up on Twitter.

Want to make your digital program sound more like a Logan Roy and less like a Kendall? Let’s chat!

Here are the links to the 40 emails ChatGPT and I analyzed for this blog post:

Biden
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1423675
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1423439
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1423338
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1423278
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1422840
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1422627
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1422243
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1422027
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1421785
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1421313
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1421064
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1420959
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1420893
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1420800
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1420514
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1420395
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1420045
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1419695
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1419606
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1419451

Trump
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1423721
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1423666
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1423567
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1423441
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1423411
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1423287
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1423255
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1423083
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1423001
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1422983
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1422723
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1422581
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1422345
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1422238
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1422174
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1422170
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1421965
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1421947
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1421850
https://politicalemails.org/messages/1421691