In an effort to raise their profiles and connect with young people, politicians and political candidates are courting Gen Z voters by speaking the language they know best: TikTok.
- 2022 candidates are using sometimes niche humor to connect with young voters online.
- They aren’t the first to try – and fail – to win the elusive “youth vote.”
- While humor is helpful in enticing young voters, experts say policies that deliver for them are more important.
When Ken Russell came across a video on TikTok of a user dropping it low to a Megan Thee Stallion song and transitioning outfits on the song’s beat, he thought to himself: “I bet I could do that.”
A Miami city commissioner running for Congress in Florida’s 27th district, Russell waited until the next city commission meeting so he’d be in his suit, and closed his office door so his staff wouldn’t see him crouching on the floor. After three tries, he finally got the transition right.
When the song’s beat dropped, Russell dropped too, leaning in close to the camera and giving his 300,000 TikTok followers a message: “Hey, are you registered to vote? There’s a primary on Aug. 23 and the general election Nov. 8.”
The video went viral on TikTok in June and on Twitter and Instagram in July, after digital marketing consultant Sonia Baschez shared the video in a tweet.
“Here’s to politicians using TikTok properly,” Baschez said of Russell’s video.
In an effort to raise their profiles and connect with young people, whose votes are notoriously hard to earn, politicians and political candidates are courting Gen Z voters by speaking the language they know best: TikTok.
From making niche memes to participating in viral trends, it’s an effort that youth voting and political humor experts say can either make or break a candidate’s campaign.
“If that strategy pays off, it’s amazing. But if it falls flat, that’s a big failure because young people on TikTok are really quick to sniff out content that they perceive as inauthentic — especially with politicians that…are using Gen Z humor, which is really specific and really odd in some ways,” said Ioana Literat, a professor at the Teacher’s College of Columbia University, who studies online political expression and participation.
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2022 candidates lean into Gen Z humor on TikTok
Russell told USA TODAY he joined TikTok a little over a year ago, around the time he launched his campaign for one of Florida’s Senate seats, which he ceded to Democratic Rep. Val Demings in May before announcing a different congressional bid.
Making videos on the app was a hobby at first but over time the platform sucked him in — and his following grew. He attributes success on the platform in part to just being himself.
“You can’t fake it, and you shouldn’t try to if you want to be successful on the platform,” Russell said of TikTok. “You really have to be yourself and let it go.”
Former U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham, who won South Carolina’s Democratic nomination for governor, told USA TODAY he joined TikTok about a year ago after his followers on Twitter suggested it.
In one of Cunningham’s most viral videos, he acts out what he’ll do when the state’s “anti-abortion bill hits my desk as governor.” The South Carolina politician squares up and throws a gentle punch with overset text that reads “Veto.” Then, he throws a second, harder punch with the text “Veto so hard.”
The video has more than 2.1 million views.
“I take this campaign and I took my job in Congress very seriously. However, you can’t take yourself too seriously,” Cunningham said. “We have some serious challenges in front of us, but it’s okay to make a joke every once a while.”
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Demings, who is running for theSenate seat currently held by Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, is also a TikTok savant.
Her campaign’s digital director, Cayana Mackey, said that the team has a dedicated “vertical video creator” who spends all her time on TikTok learning trends and translating Demings’ platform into messages that resonate with Gen Z. That way, the congresswoman’s account showcases her personality and platform in a “more relatable” way to young voters, Mackey said.
Rubio has tried to use her savvy on the app against her, saying the congresswoman should “know better” than to use the app, which has caught heat from some national security experts and Republicans due to its Chinese ownership. But Mackey argued that Rubio’s disdain for TikTok shows the senator doesn’t understand how to run a “modern digital campaign.”
“Young voters are inspired by Chief Demings and they want to get involved, they want to mobilize,” she said. “Seeing that contrast between Marco Rubio, wanting to ban one of the most popular apps for young people these days—that just helps us even more to get closer to our voters.”
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Campaigns have used TikTok before
Political candidates running for office this year aren’t the first to use the platform. A number of sitting Congress members used TikTok to bolster their campaigns in 2020 and 2021, including Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.).
Markey’s TikTok grew in popularity by employing abstract Gen Z jokes, like making three-second videos cooking pasta or zooming in on the Senator’s shoes as a lo-fi remix of one of his ads plays in the background. Ossoff, on the other hand, leaned into his age, perhaps conceiving the concept of the political “thirst trap” — a flirty post meant to entice a response, usually about the poster’s attractiveness online — on TikTok.
The politicians’ TikToks also touch on issues important to young voters, like climate change and gun v