The NPR Politics Podcast - How campaigns are using digital influencers to win voters

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

Campaigns are increasingly hoping to win over voters by tapping into digital influencers’ large followings. We discuss what the strategy looks like and whether online followers can be reliably converted into votes.This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, political reporter Elena Moore, and White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben.This podcast was produced by Bria Suggs and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Elena Moore. I cover politics. And I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the White House. And today on the show, Internet influencers, they played a big role in Donald Trump's win in 2024. People are more online than ever before. But campaigns are still figuring out how these content creators fit into our politics. So, Elena, let's start with the basics. How are candidates in 2026, working with political influencers? Yeah, well, I think, first of all, like, influencers is kind of an umbrella term just for people who have built brands on the internet. The goal of a politician is to connect with the so-called influencer, and then they can reach that influencer's audience and an audience potentially that a politician didn't have.

And so we're seeing lots of different kind of ways that candidates hope to achieve that goal, I would say. Trump is a great example in the past of going on non-truthers. media and collaborating with social media stars. But this time around, we're seeing some similar, you know, playbooks where we saw someone like Republican Spencer Pratt in the Los Angeles mayor's race. He was a reality TV star turned candidate. And he had a huge internet presence. And even went on the most popular podcast in the country of the Joe Rogan experience. And, you know, Trump did that as well. That method, it still didn't pan out. He did not advance

in the California primary. So it's not like this is a silver bullet or anything. But then at the same time, there are candidates who say they see like tangible, you know, benefits from working with influencers. I think a good example is Democrat Abdul Al-Said in Michigan, who's he's running for Senate in the open seat. And he campaigned alongside the leftist streamer, Hassan Piker. And I talked to El-Said about it. And he told me, yeah, his campaign saw a boost in engagement. They saw an increase in campaign cash. You know, the influencers are supposed to be kind of that bridge to this additional excitement that candidates want to drum up. Yeah. And I mean, this was something that I found really interesting in your story this week. It touched on a lot on Hassan Piker, who I have to admit,

I'm not very online. It's like a name I've heard before, but I'm not super familiar with him. Can you explain, I guess, for people who are like me, who he is and why he matters? Do not sell yourself short, Miles. You're young. You know things. You know things about the internet. I try to avoid the internet at all costs in some ways. I'm going to be honest about it. Anyway, that's a whole separate podcast. Miles came back from paternity leave and said, what is brat?

Never forget. Anyway, to your question, Hassan Piker is probably one of the most prominent, left-leaning, younger voices on the internet right now. He is a streamer on Twitch, and he spends hours of his days just talk in politics. and advocating for leftist causes and really not being afraid to clash with the so-called democratic establishment, come out against different policies. He kind of made waves in 2024 because he declined to endorse Kamala Harris for president. He's very much against Israel's war in Gaza, and he has drummed up some controversy for his anti-Israel views and past comments. But I say all this because he's a very politically charged figure that gets a lot of eyeballs, whether they're positive or negative.

And I think that, again, is the key here for a lot of these candidates is that they want attention. And so this election cycle, we've been seeing Piker, juxtaposed to 24 when he decided not to endorse. He's out on the campaign trail now, endorsing a handful of progressive candidates that he thinks can get his audience excited again. You know, Elena, as you're talking about that, it makes me think about the Chapo Trap House guys in 2016. It makes me think of Nick Fuentes now. And I wonder your take on this, the influencers who have the most pull or who are most successful in perhaps energizing voters, do they tend to be further from the establishment? Like, Nick Fuentes, I think fair to say, I mean, he's a white nationalist. Right.

And like you said, Hassan Piker, he is a leftist. To be clear, I am not saying that's the mirror. of white nationalist. Right, right, right. But I'm wondering, do they tend to be more anti-establishment? Yeah, I mean, I think it's hard to overgeneralize, but we can definitely just look at the big names that have come up and they do kind of fall on the ends of that political spectrum. I think another example, he's different because he comes through the organizing space, but was

the late right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, someone who was for a long time seen as fringe. And then, of course, as Trump became less and less fringe, as did he in the Republican. Republican Party. But I think you're right, Daniel, there is this kind of tendency to kind of rally around somebody who's maybe saying what some would consider the quiet part out loud, you know? And so that kind of gets back to this very like internet friendly coalition building where maybe you don't feel like some people in your community might agree with what you're saying, but there's a corner of the internet that does. And that gets back again to this idea that influencers have a really unique perspective in today's culture because oftentimes, not always, oftentimes they have national

but very specific audiences. Well, and I think the Piker example is a really interesting one too, Elena, because it's not just that he has a lot of eyeballs, but your story noted specifically who those eyeballs are, which is young white men in a lot of cases, which are the kind of people who Democrats, I think, are pulling their hair out, trying to figure out how to re-energize ahead of 2026 and 2028. Yeah, well, and you know, I asked him when, I spoke with Piker last month. I asked him to describe his audience. And that is how he described it.

He said they were roughly 60% young white men. Wow. And that is a group that he says is part of that demographic Democrats have lost. That said, we should be clear. He also said that his audience does lean very democratic. They're democratic voters. So we can't necessarily conflate these young white men with the same young white men who voted for Trump. but they are part of a generation and a demographic that we have seen as a whole stray from the party.

So the fact that Piker speaks to an audience that is part of this demographic of young white men, I mean, that that is noticeable for a lot of Democratic campaigns. Danielle, I'm also curious about your perspective on how different this is from previous election cycles and other things we've seen candidates do in terms of just campaigning with celebrities. Is it really that different, I guess, using political influencers with your campaign to, you know, Kamala Harris being on the campaign trail with Beyonce, for instance? I guess is there a difference here? Or is this just kind of more of the same thing in a different, slightly more internety way? I think there is definitely a difference. I mean, you can consider this a spectrum, I suppose. But for example, I love Beyonce's music as much as the next person, maybe even more. But Beyonce is not a person I have a parisocial relationship. with, right? I like her music. I don't go to her for her opinions. Meanwhile, I, you, I think any number of people, I have podcasters who, if I met them in real life, I think I would

fan girl out. Because these are people that we seek out, we follow, we have them in our ears, in front of our eyes. In the case of some of these streamers for hours at a time, or in the case of some of these influencers, we specifically look them up on Instagram or TikTok. And we we just want to know what they're up to, want to know what they think of X, Y, Z. And especially if they're a political influencer, if there's someone like Hassan Piker, for example, people are going to him to know what he thinks about politics. So I think someone like him has the potential to really engage voters. So I think in that way, yeah, I think it is a bit different. It's not just, oh man, movie star I like, likes this candidate, which, you know,

many people have pointed out. So what does that tell me? But someone whose opinion you trust, yeah, I think that can make a difference. It's also this unique thing where influencers are not journalists. They're not objective. And Piker and some other political commentators really tow this line where they've both established trust and oftentimes are people's in part source of news. But then they also give you their opinion. And so not only do you trust them, you are hearing their views, which is a key difference than political journalism and the work that, like, we would do. And so I think hearing Piker go out and endorse someone, hearing Piker tell his audience directly what he thinks they should consider in this upcoming midterms, I think that goes a long way.

And I asked him when we spoke, what is your message to your audience, you know, why are you doing this? And here's what he told me. The message is simple. I'm telling them, I trust this person. I like this person. And I think this person is worth supporting. This is a person that you don't have to just like reluctantly vote for, but this is a person you can go out and doork for. So, yeah, I mean, there you hear. It's a call to action directly from someone who, you know, an audience member might really trust and support. Yeah, and I feel like the key word he says there is trust.

You know, I'm telling them, I trust this person. And I feel like we're seeing this at the same time where trust in the mainstream media apparatus keeps going down every year, every single poll it's done about it. And then so it makes sense to me that there's a vacuum for people are looking for, okay, who do I trust to tell me what I should be thinking about these issues or who I should be voting for? And so it seems like these influencers are basically filling that void. Yeah, I think a bit. And I mean, I talked to one expert who studies the social media, internet, all that like at all, I guess. And they said, you know, it's, you know, insert academic word. But they said, you know, they think it's going to get more and more common for politicians. to treat podcast appearances and, you know, non-traditional media appearances that have huge followings. Joe Rogan has average 12 million listeners a month. They're going to start treating that, this person argued, more and more like a traditional, you know, 60 minutes hit. And I think one additional thing to think about here is when you're talking about some of

these influencers, not all, but some of them being a follower of theirs itself can become a part of your identity, and that is a very powerful poll. Like, not just I watch this person, but again, I'm going to go back to Nick Fuentes, his followers, the Groyper's. There is a name for them. And along with that comes a type of person, a system of beliefs. And I think that these relationships go beyond mere consumption, and they go into, I am not just a person who listens to Joe Rogan, Hassan Pike, or whoever, I follow. That is the kind of person I am. I identify with that person.

And that is a much stronger poll than again. I like Beyonce's music. All right. This is a good place to leave it. Let's get more into this after the break. And we're back. So, Elena, we're talking about influencers and campaigns, working with these people to get their message out.

The big question I have at this point is, does it work? I know, I understand that President Trump won the 2024 election, and a lot of that was tied to how he used non-traditional. media, but he's not the only candidate, obviously, who's trying to use the internet. Is there any other broader thinking about whether candidates working with political influencers is translating or does translate to actual votes? Yeah, we should be extremely clear. This gets a lot of attention because it's relatively new and it's flashy, but we cannot

definitively say that online views leads to votes. Like, you know, during 24, especially when you think back to Kamala Harris's like, hype online. We used to always say vibes are not votes and that continues to be true. And so, yeah, I think there are examples of it translating to votes. And I think there's a lot that goes into that debate of does this work. But this is not something strategists and creators say you can just like throw money at a problem and, you know, fix or make work. And I think there are examples of that already. I mean, dating back several, several elections. But it's not. knew that we've seen some campaigns actually pay influencers to, you know, promote their campaigns.

And that's already been a thing this cycle again. I think about the Democrat billionaire in California who was running in the governor's race, Tom Steyer, he's a progressive. There was reporting that he paid influencers tens of thousands of dollars to promote his bid. And that campaign saw historic amounts of spending in general. and he still came in third. He's not advancing out of the primary. And so I think that this is something donors and candidates can understand there's a problem, but the solution is very much not black and white. And, you know, that's something I heard from different Democrats in this digital space as I was reporting the story, including from a progressive activist named Cheyenne Hunt, who was the former executive director of Gen Z for Change, which is a youth-led online. progressive group. And here's what she said when I asked her if she felt that the Democratic Party more broadly and, you know, Democrats more broadly were understanding the need to invest in

this space. Here's how she put it. My observation is that most of the money is going to the creators who are all speaking in the same echo chamber of folks whose support we already had. And it's not going to like change hearts and minds. And you know, that can mean a bunch of things. But there she's talking about we've seen the Democratic Party try to create a left-leaning network of influencers as seen in certain right-wing circles. When you think of Turning Point USA or Prager U, these places that have been like incubators for young conservatives to really gain followings and speak their mind. And there have been efforts on the Democratic side to kind of build up, you know, similar kind of ecosystems. But to some like Hunt, they really want to see

people invest, Democrats invest in apolitical spaces, in creators who maybe don't talk about politics every single day and have followings that, you know, maybe are not extremely politically wonky right now, but could be. That makes complete sense to me, like this idea that if the audience is already self-selecting that they like these issues or they're interested in these issues, that's not reaching new, the sort of new voters who that you might be thinking you are. That makes complete sense to me. Yeah, and there's multiple challenges here, right?

not to discount politically active young people seeing campaigns, you know, to get back to Piker's point. Like, he wants his audience to get involved. And so there's several challenges speaking specifically about the Democratic Party right now that Democrats have. They need to reengage the young progressives and left-leaning young people that they lost in 24 or were not excited to get out there. And then they also need to reach more people that are just not even in the same online space

at all. Right. And we saw some measure. of this engagement with non-political creators, I guess we can call them, in 2024 with the Trump campaign, when he went on the tour of dude podcasts, right? I mean, if you listen to Joe Rogan, you're not hearing politics all the time. You're not even hearing politics a majority of the time, at least not directly. You're hearing, you know, people talk about aliens. You're hearing people talk about fitness and wellness, all that stuff. If you're listening to Theo Vaugh, you're hearing,

You're hearing comedians. You're hearing any number of things. So if you already listen to those guys and then a politician swoops in and starts talking on that podcast, you might not have heard from that politician or cared about that politician or certainly not sat down to listen to 45 minutes or in the case of Rogan, two or three hours of that politician. Yeah, until you sit down and listen to that. So yeah, the people who listen to or watch Hassan Piker, they're already, quite politically engaged, one would guess. But the people who listen to Theo Vaughan, maybe not. And so that can be a very different space to engage with people. Yeah, and it feels like it's almost scratching two different itches where it's like, I understand if you go, if you're, if you're talking to a political influencer, you're probably that interview is going to be focused on your policies, the things you're interested in. But I was thinking about watching Zohran Mamdani talk to Adam Freeland on the Adam Freeland show, who's, I would, I think it's an, it's fair to say he's an influencer. He's a podcaster, right? Yeah, in the same big space. Yeah, I mean, he, a lot of this just focused on, like, soccer and other things that, like, I think politicians are constantly struggling for people to see them as human beings. And I guess I wonder about that other, dipping your toe in those other spaces that aren't specifically political influencers. I feel like it's really helpful to try to build up your sort of, like, human credentials. Definitely.

I think there's long bend in this kind of vibes, I guess we'll stick with that word, about having, have. having a very online component to your campaign of going outside of quote unquote traditional media, which is often also expensive media. And the sort of flavor that it gives your campaign is grassrootsy, is maybe populist, is authentic, the word that we throw around in politics all the time. Like I think back to Obama 2008, he had a well-funded campaign. He was the Democratic nominee. But one of the things that energized people so much, it was a sort of circular thing of he has

a lot of online people. He's getting a lot of donations online. He's getting all these volunteers online. This must be a grassroots guy I can trust. He's not establishment. So maybe I'll volunteer for him and donate. And just went on and on and get your friends to volunteer and donate. Yeah, I feel like that Between Two Ferns episode with Zach Gallupinacchus and Obama, that

I'm like, actually, that's exactly what we're talking about. That was like 15 years ago now, but that was a moment where he was in this medium that wasn't normally, I didn't think of those sort of internet shorts as a place a politician would be. And it did probably do a lot to energize a certain population. Yeah, but one of the things Elaine is talking about here really complicates this, right? Because if you think of the influencers you watch as being authentic, as being themselves, if you find out they're being paid, then that is an entirely. new veneer to lay over this whole thing, right? Because if you see an ad on TV, it says paid for by Kamala Harris for president. But you don't hear that from an influencer. And so now, I wonder how complicated this space is going to be because it's largely unregulated.

And so do people start to doubt influencers? I think this is all about to get much messier. Totally, totally. And it gets back to that word trust. You know, we should say young Americans today are disproportionately distrusting of institutions. They are skeptical of the government. Many people tell me they've never seen a politician that, you know, delivers on what they've promised. And so the idea that there is trust in this space that is insanely unregulated and does have clear, you know, issues in how that trust comes across is very, very striking. Well, the last thing I want to bring up is the idea of political risk, because that's the other thing that when I think of people who have huge online. following the people you've mentioned, whether it's Piker, whether it's Nick Fuentes.

One of the common denominators to me is that these are people who push the boundaries. They say inflammatory things. That is often rewarded in a lot of these online platforms. And I guess I wonder, Elena, how you think campaigns going forward are going to think about the political risk of engaging with some of these people because either the possibility that they say something in their appearance that could be potentially controversial or just associating with some of the people could be potentially controversial. No, yeah, you've definitely seen examples of candidates who get associated with controversial internet figures. And I think that James Fishbach, the Republican running for

governor in Florida, he's a far right candidate. He has courted a lot of that, you know, Groyper vote, that Nick Fuentes supporter vote of young Gen Z men. And that association, maybe to some who support Fuentes, like Fuentes, could see that as a positive. But I think to a lot of people, that is alienating. That is extremely, you know, offensive or divisive. And so there is a calculus. And of course, that is an extreme example. But when you think about someone like Piker, who does have a record of comments that some do find offensive or hurtful or in regards to Israel or in regards to just U.S. policy around the war, that's something to consider. That said when I talk to candidates like El Saeed who campaigned with Piker, he told me everyday people, he argues, don't care about what someone else said who you stand with. He argued that if you share certain beliefs with someone, it doesn't mean you share all of their beliefs, which I thought was interesting. And he argues him and Piker agree on a lot of things around affordability, around access to quality health care, et cetera. And that's what they're going to talk about. So it is a political calculable. And I think it's, again, goes back to this, like, authenticity of how much somebody is willing to kind of stand by what they believe and kind of defend their stance.

All right. Well, we can leave it there for today. Elena, thanks as always for explaining the Internet to me. Oh, my God, Miles. We're not that different in age. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Elena Moore.

I cover politics. And I'm Daniel Kurtzleben. I cover the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Thank you.