How Ro Khanna Became a TikTok Political Star
In the past year, Rep. Ro Khanna’s (D-Calif.) campaign TikTok account went from 173,000 views to 68 million. Twelve-thousand engagements turned to 9.1 million. He now has the second biggest account in Congress by total views.
Khanna’s exponential growth on the popular video platform wasn’t a fluke or the result of a lucky streak for the California congressman. Rather, it was thanks to a concerted effort that kicked off early this year as a looming ban on TikTok threatened to go into effect.
At the time, Caleb Brock was just getting started as the Khanna campaign’s director of digital strategy. As he sought to find his place on the team, Brock said that the TikTok ban presented a perfect opportunity to set Khanna – a Silicon Valley progressive who voted against the ban in the first place – apart in the increasingly competitive digital media landscape.
“I noticed the TikTok ban was coming around back in early January. And so basically, I kind of kicked into gear immediately, because that’s kind of what I do is I find ways to take moments and make them into bigger things,” Brock told Campaigns & Elections in an interview. “And so we made Ro the face of saving TikTok.”
The effort apparently paid off. According to Brock’s estimate, Khanna’s presence on TikTok helped gather 1.3 million opt-in emails through a petition on TikTok to help save the platform from the looming federal ban.
The TikTok push wasn’t a one-off for Khanna. His team continued to post on the platform about the ban. One video received “more views than people who watched the Grammys one year,” Brock said.
The result, according to Brock, is that it helped a lot of Americans – especially younger people – understand “that there’s a Democrat out there who really cares about something as specific as TikTok.” It wasn’t just about saving the app, Brock said, but about saving the creators, influencers and businesses that stake their livelihoods on TikTok.
“I think TikTok is one of the more important platforms now,” Brock said. “I think that that’s why…there’s such a mad dash for consultants and candidates and firms and things like that to try and crack the next big secret on TikTok.
But the secret, Brock said, is that “there is no secret. What it is is inserting your candidate or client into the moment in a way that makes sense for them.”
“If you can just take these moments and run with it, and if you replicate that 100 times over a year, then you can get to 68 million views,” he said.
Inherent in the strategy, of course, is an innate understanding of TikTok and the broader digital media landscape. At 24 years old, Brock fits the mold of a digital native. He began working in politics when he was 19 helping run Sen. Ed Markey’s social media direct messages. He knows that digital strategy isn’t about producing the most polished video. It’s about acting fast, being authentic and having a conversation with an audience.
Those who fail to adapt to those new realities, Brock said, risk becoming irrelevant.
“You’re going to completely miss the moment because things are moving fast these days,” he told C&E. “Things are moving fast and they’re moving in ways that nobody quite understands, unless you’re truly willing to kind of let yourself go and not try to control every single thing of every interview ever.”
