Rep. Ritchie Torres is a self-described introvert, but you might not guess that if you've seen him on social media. The 37-year-old Democrat from New York City routinely posts videos of himself on TikTok, YouTube and Facebook, even though he says that — as a millennial born before smartphones — he's not a natural at performing in front of a camera.
But Torres has embraced online videos because, he says, to succeed as a politician today: "You have to master what I call 'the three threes.'"
He means a 30-second vertical video, a three-minute cable news hit, and a three-hour filmed podcast interview.
"Anyone who can master all three will excel in the new media ecosystem that has taken hold in American politics," Torres said.
And he maintains that it's not only a matter of excelling; it's about surviving. Torres calls this an "extinction moment for establishment politics": that if politicians don't get serious about communicating with voters, and non-voters, in all the digital spaces where people today get their information, and sometimes misinformation, they're unlikely to last long in the business.
"You get good at it or you become extinct. I mean, that's life, right?" he added. "That's evolution. Either adapt or die."
Ever since President Trump was reelected in 2024, the Democratic party has been agonizing over what it did wrong. Now, as Democrats prepare for next year's critical midterm elections, they're trying to figure out not just their messaging, but how and where to reach voters. And some political analysts say Republicans are trouncing Democrats when it comes to reaching people online, especially through online videos.
"Democrats are not nearly as good communicators as they should be on social media," said Sivan Jacobovitz, co-founder of Van Ness Creative Strategies, a digital agency that works to elect Democrats. Torres is one of its clients.
"A politician should be on all the available mediums where they can talk to voters, whether that's social media, TV, the newspaper, or the local press," Jacobovitz explained. "But so many elected officials are viewing social media in the lens of an afterthought or an intern's job, when it's the number-one place that people are currently getting their news in America."
Indeed, more than 50 percent of Americans now get their news from social media, and about 75 percent watch news in video form, according to a recent study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Yet when Jacobovitz's company tallied how many members of Congress up for election are posting online videos, it found that many barely are.
Jacobovitz also says Democrats often seem more scripted than Republicans and hesitant to go on bro pods and the manosphere, realms that Donald Trump is widely viewed as having conquered, letting him reach a wide range of Americans who avoid politics. That gives Republicans a strategic advantage over Democrats, making it imperative for Democrats to be on those platforms, too.
"The defeat we had in 2024 felt not only like an electoral defeat, but like a cultural defeat," Jacobovitz said. "To someone online, it may seem very obvious what we're saying here, but that's literally the problem we are trying to sound the alarm on, is that things that seem very obvious to people are not systemically being done."
That sense of urgency was accelerated by this summer's upset win in New York City's mayoral primary by 33-year-old Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, who is effortlessly comfortable online. He often films his interactions with New Yorkers and posts the videos on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. That has spurred copycat efforts by his political rivals, including Instagram videos of Andrew Cuomo jumpstarting a car and Eric Adams doing pullups.
Jacobovitz's agency has advised Democratic politicians that if they're not comfortable with that communication style, "now is a great time to retire." Of course, his agency makes money creating online political videos, so it could benefit from criticizing offline politicians.
To that charge, Jacobovitz has this retort: "We frequently tell candidates we work with: You don't need to hire us to do it, but you need to have someone doing it who knows what they're doing, and that someone may be their kid."
That's exactly who Democrat Adelita Grijalva tasked with creating TikTok videos for her current run for Congress in Arizona: her teenage daughter and her daughter's friend.
"They said, 'You need to be on Tiktok,' and I'm like, 'I don't know that we have the bandwidth to do that,'" Grijalva recalled. "They're like, 'Well, we're going to do our own. Is that okay?' I said, 'Sure!'"
The "Youth for Adelita" TikTok account has about a thousand followers -- minuscule compared to Grijalva's Gen Z opponent in July's special primary, 25-year-old Deja Foxx, who has nearly four hundred thousand followers. Foxx is less than half Grijalva's age and generated big excitement and dollars online. But Grijalva beat her by 40 points.
"Social media is an important tool in a tool kit, but elections are not won by likes," Grijalva said. "There has to be an online presence, but it should be to entice you in to try to find out more."
Successful campaigning, she adds, also has to involve grassroots-organizing, coalition-building, talking with the public, and having policies voters want. Social media "is very helpful in getting information out," Grijalva says, "but it doesn't substitute for old-fashioned phone calls and door-to-door."
Skeptics of the social media bandwagon point to that Arizona race as proof that an impressive TikTok following does not guarantee a win. For her part, Foxx notes that Grijalva has a unique advantage: She's the daughter of the congressman who used to hold the seat, 77-year-old Raúl Grijalva, who died earlier this year.
"I didn't have my dad's contacts to call in D.C or advisors to lean on," Foxx said. "I had to build this from scratch."
Foxx also maintains that even though she lost, her race shows that young candidates without legacy political connections can use smart social media strategies to run viable campaigns. And she says attracting voters, especially young voters, requires politicians to be visible online.
"Not everybody in Congress or the Senate or in government needs to be a TikTok star," she added, "but it would be nice if we had a few in our party."
There are some already, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York and Jasmine Crockett in Texas, and North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, a former congressman; they're all Democrats with followers in the millions.
But Foxx says many others need to do the same, because TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, video podcasts and other social media sites are where so many Americans are, and that means politicians need to be there, too.
"If we don't invest in leaders who are effective messengers in those social media and new media spaces within our party," she added, "there will be no party for my generation to inherit."
Torres, the Democratic New York congressman, agrees.
"The results of the 2024 election revealed that Republicans in general, and Donald Trump in particular, have a mastery of new media," he says. "The rules of politics are being radically rewritten, and many of my colleagues are struggling to adjust to the new reality."
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