‘Creator Rally’ Aims to ‘De-Risk’ Politics for Influencers Ahead of Midterms

On Tuesday evening, thousands of content creators – some with a few thousand followers and others with up to a million – tuned in online to hear from a cast of Democratic officials, activists and prominent influencers about what’s at stake in the 2026 midterms.

The goal of the virtual confab: to give creators, both budding and established, a framework for how to talk politics and mobilize voters, and to remind them of their influence and reach as the country enters the final stretch of the 2026 midterms. 

“Your voices, your platforms, the way you’re using those platforms matters more than ever,” Massachusetts’ Democratic Gov. Maura Healey told attendees. “You have this ability to connect in a way that, frankly, us politicians don’t always do a good job at connecting with people on issues and things that are top of mind.”

Content creators have become a hot commodity in the political world in recent years, as a growing number of Americans – particularly young people – have turned to online personalities, influencers, streamers and the like, not just for entertainment, but for updates on news and politics.

Overall, 21 percent of U.S. adults say they regularly get news from influencers on social media, according to a 2025 survey from Pew Research Center. Among 18-to-29-year-olds, that number jumps even higher to 38 percent. What’s more, there’s virtually no partisan gap, with a near-equal share of Democrats and Republicans turning to influencers for news and information.

The Tuesday evening “Midterms Creator Rally” was put on by People First, a Democratic agency that works with influencers on behalf of campaigns to create and post political content. Its clients have included groups like Planned Parenthood and Latino Victory Fund, as well as former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign. 

This year, People First has around 75 active paid campaigns, according to the agency’s founding partner and CEO Ryan Davis. But the rally is intended to help activate creators “pro bono” in the runup to Election Day, he said. That includes “some political creators,” but also more “general creators.”

“I think a lot of people have values and they want to express it, but they’re worried it’ll hurt their brand, because they might have 50 percent of an audience that feels a different way about politics,” Davis said. “Giving them the tools to talk about things, to de-risk it, I think, is really important.”

According to Davis, the Tuesday livestream drew over 4,000 unique visits, including 703 individuals who actively registered for the rally. Those who registered will receive a GOTV kit with information on the fundraising platform Oath, as well as access to Sway, an app that allows creators to invite their followers into a network, where they can receive messages and get reminders to vote.

Davis said that creators who registered for the rally will also receive clips from the livestream that they can share on their own networks, and people first will curate some of the “best clips” for its 34,000-person creator community in the coming weeks.

More broadly, however, the Midterms Creator Rally could be read as a crash course in messaging. The idea, according to Davis, isn’t to be “prescriptive,” but to feature a range of speakers that “can bring smart messaging” to creators. 

Throughout the hour-and-a-half livestream, speakers ran the gamut of issues looming over the midterms. New York state Rep. Alex Bores, who became a leading voice for AI regulation during a contentious Democratic House primary this summer, spoke about the risks posed by the fast-developing technology. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg homed in on corruption in Washington. And Rose Montoya, a transgender activist and influencer with nearly 800,000 followers on TikTok, offered a response to Republicans’ anti-trans rhetoric.

“This was never about what voters actually want,” Montoya said. “It’s about what keeps you looking the other way. Ads become slogans, slogans become bills and bills become laws.”

While Tuesday’s livestream was the second iteration of People First’s Creator Rally (the agency hosted its inaugural one in 2024), the broader push to activate influencers and content creators on behalf of Democrats is, to an extent, born out of necessity. Republicans – particularly President Donald Trump and aligned organizations – have courted right-wing influencers to great effect in recent years. 

That network of pro-MAGA and Trump-friendly creators has helped conservatives thrive in certain online circles and reach voters that may have otherwise taken a more passive approach to politics. Democrats, meanwhile, have historically been more reluctant to turn over their messaging to creators and influencers, Davis said.

“Republicans are more open about the creators they’re willing to work with,” Davis said. “Democrats, as a whole, are way more into brand safety. When they’re contracting with a creator, they want to make sure that they go through everything a creator has said.” 

“Republicans understand that it’s just a war of attrition,” he added. “It doesn’t matter that the messenger is perfect. It matters that the messenger is reaching an audience.”