How Democrats Are Honing Their New Media Strategy
It’s become one of the defining splitscreens of the 2024 election cycle: President Donald Trump eagerly pounced at nearly every opportunity to speak with YouTube personalities, popular podcast hosts and right-wing influencers. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, on the other hand, largely played it safe, sitting for interviews with a cast of legacy news outlets.
With the November election now in the rearview mirror, however, Democrats and progressives are embracing online media like never before in hopes of countering what they see as the right’s increasing dominance in the digital-first media ecosystem. Consultants say it’s a necessary lesson for Democrats to learn.
“Elected officials and candidates need to think more expansively about the media environment,” Jared Leopold, a Democratic communications consultant and the founder of Leopold Strategies, said. “You can’t afford to communicate only in mono anymore. It needs to be in stereo. And that means reaching out to podcasters and YouTubers and influencers, and telling your story in the places where people are consuming it.”Going Beyond Legacy Media
Going Beyond Legacy Media
That new strategy was on prominent display last week during and after Trump’s speech to Congress when several congressional Democrats eschewed the traditional gaggles with the press corp in favor of one-on-one conversations with influencers and online personalities, like YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen and attorney Joe Gallina, who runs the online group Call to Activism.
Mike Nellis, the founder and CEO of the Democratic firm Authentic, posted interviews with Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, and Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., on his TikTok account after Trump’s address. His interview with Crockett had garnered more than 750,000 views on the app as of Friday.
“The Democrats had a much better content creation plan than ever before,” Nellis told C&E. “They invited content creators. They embraced them. They were walking out and getting their message to a different kind of audience.”
Left-leaning podcasts have also seen a boost in listenership in recent weeks, as Democrats and progressives have sought out comfort in the Trump era.
Last month, the MeidasTouch Podcast surpassed the Joe Rogan Experience for the No. 1 slot in both Apple’s and Spotify’s podcast rankings – a massive achievement given Rogan’s longtime reign atop the podcast charts. The podcast has also become a coveted stop for Democratic pols, like New York Attorney General Letitia James and Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., who have appeared on the show in recent weeks.
Another show, Pod Save America, hosted by former Obama White House alums Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor, has seen a 70 percent jump in hours played on Spotify since January.
More Than Politics
Still, conservatives still have an advantage when it comes to the online media ecosystem. A report released on Friday by the left-leaning watchdog group Media Matters for American found that right-leaning online shows draw five times as many followers and subscribers as their left-leaning counterparts.
Leopold said that Democrats and progressives also need to look beyond political media as part of their strategy.
“It’s incredibly important to get your message out through lifestyle, through sports, through culture,” Leopold said. “I think there needs to be a recognition that we need to go beyond the political sphere.”
One Democratic communications consultant who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss his party’s new media strategy said that Democrats and progressives still have work to do when it comes to matching conservatives’ online influence.
“We’re moving in the right direction,” the consultant said. “But I’m worried that we’re going to pigeonhole ourselves into the same set of friendly media. We need to expand our horizons and have the guts to go on shows and talk to people that might make us uncomfortable.”
