The internet has a funny way of leaking into the real world. Usually, it stays confined to your phone screen—a dance move here, a weird slang term there. But during the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election, a viral soundbite threatened to actually land on official government tally sheets. You probably saw the memes. People were joking, or maybe not joking, about a hawk tuah write in campaign.
It sounds like a fever dream. A young woman in Nashville says something suggestive during a street interview, and suddenly, she’s a political footnote?
Honestly, the "Hawk Tuah Girl," whose real name is Haliey Welch, became the defining face of 2024’s "brain rot" culture. Her rise was fast. One minute she was working at a spring factory in Tennessee; the next, she was launching a podcast called Talk Tuah and throwing out the first pitch at a Mets game. But when November rolled around, the meme took a turn toward the ballot box.
The 75,000 Votes Myth
Let's clear the air on the biggest piece of misinformation floating around. Shortly after the election, a screenshot started circulating on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). It looked like a legitimate CNN headline. The text claimed that over 75,000 write-in votes had been cast for "Hawk Tuah" or "Talk Tuah."
It looked real. It had the CNN branding, the right fonts, and even a byline from a real reporter, Stephen Collinson.
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But it was a total fake.
CNN spokesperson Emily Kuhn eventually had to come out and tell fact-checkers at PolitiFact that the image was "fabricated." The network never reported that number because the number didn't exist. While some people definitely wrote it in for a laugh—because, let's face it, people always write in weird stuff—there was no massive, organized movement that siphoned off tens of thousands of votes.
Why Do People Write in Memes?
Voting is a serious civic duty, but it’s also a place where people vent their frustrations. If you don't like Candidate A and you can't stand Candidate B, you might write in "Mickey Mouse" or "Your Mom." In 2024, "Hawk Tuah" became the go-to protest vote for the chronically online.
It wasn't just about the girl herself. It was a symptom of how exhausted people felt with the traditional political cycle. Writing in a meme is a way of saying, "This whole thing is a joke, so I’m going to treat it like one."
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Haliey Welch didn't ask for this. She wasn't running for office. She was busy navigating a messy transition from viral fame to actual business, which included a pretty disastrous attempt at a cryptocurrency called $HAWK. That "memecoin" crashed hard, leading to lawsuits and a lot of angry investors. Politics was probably the last thing on her mind while she was being accused of a "pump and dump" scheme.
Real Data vs. Internet Noise
So, did anyone actually vote for her? Probably.
In every election, there are thousands of "scattering" votes. These are the write-ins that don't meet the threshold to be counted individually. Most states require a write-in candidate to file formal paperwork before the election for their votes to be tallied. Since Welch didn't file to be President of the United States (obviously), any vote with her name on it was just tossed into the "other" pile.
The reality of a hawk tuah write in is much smaller than the internet would have you believe.
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- Official Tally: Most local boards of elections saw a handful of meme-related write-ins.
- Viral Hoax: The "75,000 votes" claim was a classic example of rage-bait designed to make people think the country had lost its mind.
- Cultural Impact: Even though the votes weren't real, the fact that we had to fact-check it says a lot about the state of media in 2026.
Navigating Viral Misinformation
If you're looking back at the 2024 election cycles, it’s easy to get buried in the layers of irony. The "Hawk Tuah" moment was a flash in the pan that lasted way longer than it should have because it was "sticky." It was easy to remix, easy to put on a t-shirt, and apparently, easy to photoshop onto a news graphic.
When you see these kinds of claims today, the first thing you should do is check the source. If it’s a screenshot of a news article but you can’t find the link on the actual news site, it’s fake. If the numbers seem too perfectly "viral"—like exactly 75,000—it’s probably a bot-generated hoax.
The most important takeaway here is that memes rarely translate into real-world power, but they are great at distorting our perception of reality. Haliey Welch is still around, dealing with the fallout of her crypto projects and her podcast, but she isn't sitting in the Oval Office.
Next Steps for Verifying Election Claims:
- Check State Election Portals: If you want to see real write-in data, go to the Secretary of State website for specific states like New Hampshire or Vermont, which often publish detailed write-in lists.
- Search for Retractions: Before sharing a shocking political stat, search the keyword plus "fact check" to see if organizations like Lead Stories or PolitiFact have already debunked it.
- Verify the Byline: If a screenshot shows a specific reporter's name, check that reporter's official social media or author page to see if they actually wrote the story.