Politics

Could 2028 be the ‘YouTube election’?

Published

1 year ago

September 20, 2025

The 2028 presidential primaries are already unfolding on YouTube.

Amid the rapid decline of cable news, potential candidates and other elected officials are locked in a digital arms race to draw subscribers, boost their reach and build what amounts to their own broadcast networks.

Potential candidates like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) are closing in on audiences that rival or surpass total cable primetime viewers for individual networks. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley is racking up millions of views. Vivek Ramaswamy, the former 2024 GOP presidential candidate who is running for Ohio governor, dwarfs any other Republican but President Donald Trump on YouTube with more than 813,000 subscribers. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s channel started the year with just 28,000 subscribers, and now has 177,000, having generated nearly 10 million views and accumulated 500,000 hours of viewing time so far this year, according to a spokesperson. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear saw a 448 percent increase in views from last year to this year, a spokesperson tells Blue Light News.

Taken together, it signals the arrival of a fast-changing attention economy that has scrambled what effective political communication looks like. The 2028 cycle has the potential to be the first post-cable TV election, heralding the dawn of a post-literate era in which technology fully displaces reading and consumption of news from traditional outlets.

“I think there are a lot of elected officials and their staff who are realizing that their viewers are not necessarily just on cable news, and if they want to reach more people, more diverse audiences, they really have to diversify where they’re talking,” said Emily Keller, a former Democratic National Committee social media director who now works with Democratic officials as a strategic partner manager for YouTube.

In this, Buttigieg’s thinking is instructive. In the past, his team turned to YouTube mainly to share clips from his media appearances. Their thinking is different now. “Looking ahead, we see the channel evolving into a destination of its own,” Chris Meagher, a Buttigieg spokesperson, told Blue Light News. Meagher went on to describe the platform as “a place for Pete to connect in a direct and unfiltered way with millions of Americans.” (One example: Buttigieg recently spoke to a rural health care provider about the impact of President Donald Trump’s budget cuts.)

The landscape has fundamentally changed since 2016, which some political observers memorably (and incorrectly) predicted would be the “Meerkat election.” That was a passing fad. But the switch to YouTube has staying power.

Just last week, YouTube hosted what it trumpeted as its “first-ever exclusive, global broadcast of an NFL game.” C-SPAN has landed there, too. Young men and disaffected voters are also flocking to the platform for their news.

“YouTube by far represents the broadest reach potential of any platform, especially among younger audiences and disengaged voters,” Meagher told Blue Light News.

YouTube says this is a boom time for politicians on the platform. “We’re seeing really significant growth in ways that I would not expect in an off year,” said Carly Eason, a former Republican National Committee official who works as Keller’s counterpart, focusing on YouTube’s outreach to GOP figures. “As they really invest in their channels, work on their channels, and follow a lot of YouTube best practices, they’re really reaping the rewards.”

YouTube views are surging among both Republicans and Democrats. “Verdict with Ted Cruz” has some 331,000 subscribers. His top video — an interview with Elon Musk— has garnered 1.2 million views. “This Is Gavin Newsom,” hosted by the California governor, has 187,000 subscribers. Beshear, the Kentucky governor, has a series of videos called “Andy Unplugged: The Lighter Side of Leadership,” in which he has taken on the drive-thru at Wonder Whip, shown off Churchill Downs and watched the 2024 solar eclipse.

Other political leaders have taken a different approach to YouTube’s rising influence, primarily focusing on outreach to existing creators on the platform. Rep. Ro Khanna’s (D-Calif.) recent push to improve child safety on Roblox, the online gaming platform, garnered more than 50 million views across 18 videos on other creators’ channels, said Marie Baldassarre, Khanna’s senior communications adviser.

That’s a deliberate choice.

“Our strategy with influencers, right-wing creators and non-political voices is reaching hundreds of thousands of first-time voters and letting them know that Democrats aren’t so bad after all,” Baldassarre told Blue Light News.

It’s not just potential 2028 candidates who are flocking to the platform.

More broadly, politicians are recognizing they need to build their own audiences. At 92, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) — who, decades ago, was the first senator to adopt the fax machine — is kicking the tires on doing more podcasts, Eason said.

Few Democrats have done so well on YouTube as Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). He began the year with 24,000 subscribers and now has nearly half a million. His straight-to-the-camera videos perform well.

“The nice thing about building up a following on YouTube is that it puts my content in front of people who aren’t necessarily looking for it,” Schiff told Blue Light News in an interview.

Not long ago, amid his YouTube experiment earlier this year, Schiff said a waiter at a restaurant complimented him on his “show.” He thought the person must’ve been referring to an appearance on BLN or another media hit. He thanked the man and then pressed further.

“He looked at me somewhat surprised, and he said, ‘Your show on YouTube,’” Schiff said. “And I thought to myself, ‘Wow, I’ve got a show.’ And now you know that we’re closing in on 500,000 subscribers, that really is like the following of a cable news show.”

Schiff said his party still has work to do in checking Republicans’ rise on alternative platforms.

“We as a party still have a lot more catching up to do in the digital realm, both in terms of the different platforms, but also with digital and social media influencers,” Schiff said.

“The best time for Democrats to care about YouTube was 2018,” Stefan Smith, a Democratic digital strategist, told Blue Light News. “The second-best time is now.”

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Politics

Top GOP groups scale back North Carolina spending

Published

56 minutes ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Leading Republicans are pulling back from the North Carolina Senate race, sending a clear message: What was a top-tier battleground at the start of the cycle is no longer worth the money.

The foremost Senate GOP super PAC, Senate Leadership Fund, is pausing its future spending in North Carolina and instead launching a seven-figure ad buy in deep-red Kansas, according to one person familiar with the move. The news was first reported by Semafor.

The dramatic change in strategy — less than four weeks before the midterms — comes after SLF previously spent more than $30 million to boost GOP nominee Michael Whatley. It also comes as public polling has continued to show Whatley unable to close the gap against popular former Gov. Roy Cooper, the Democratic candidate.

Republicans are now deprioritizing a state that President Donald Trump carried in all three presidential runs, and that Democrats haven’t won in the Senate since 2008.

“We are all clear-eyed about where North Carolina stands,” said one national GOP operative working on Senate races, who like others in this article was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

SLF isn’t the only major GOP group shifting away from North Carolina as Republicans focus on other must-win seats and deep-red states, amid the Iran war, high fuel prices and other economic fallout of the war in Iran.

Earlier Friday, the Koch-aligned Americans for Prosperity Action left North Carolina off its $22 million list of future spending across key Senate contests, as POLITICO reported. Another major Republican group focused specifically on boosting Whatley — Old North Action — removed $6.5 million in ad reservations from North Carolina’s Senate race last month.

“Michael Whatley is a good man who took one for the team — but with states like Alaska, Kansas, and Texas requiring continued resource commitments, there is only so much,” said another national GOP operative working on midterm races. “Especially against a very popular former Governor in Roy Cooper.”

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is currently running coordinated ad reservations with six of its battleground candidates. Whatley in North Carolina is not one of them, according to data from advertising tracking service AdImpact.

NRSC regional press secretary Nick Puglia said in a statement that “Whatley will put North Carolina families first by cutting taxes and keeping criminals locked up.”

Whatley for months has struggled to boost his name ID against the much better-known Cooper. Some recent public polls show Cooper leading Whatley by double-digit margins. Private polling has also hardly budged, despite the recent influx of spending, according to a person working on the race.

In a statement, Whatley spokesperson DJ Griffin said the team feels “confident we have the resources” to win in November.

“Roy Cooper recently said about federal elections in North Carolina, ‘Democrats are often ahead until they are not,’” Griffin said. “Undecided Voters who break late decide the election in North Carolina and the majority of those Late-Breakers typically go Republican.”

AFP Action and Old North Action did not immediately respond to a request for comment about North Carolina. SLF declined to comment.

SLF’s decision came as a shock to some, but not all, North Carolina Republicans — mostly because Senate Majority Leader John Thune has been scheduled to be in North Carolina for an event with Whatley on Thursday night. Thune ended up joining the event virtually, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.

For weeks, top Republicans acknowledged North Carolina may be slipping away. One Republican who attended a donor meeting with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and SLF during the Dallas convention told POLITICO that holding the state would be “tough.”

“The map has shifted a little bit, and to be fair, we knew that was going to be a tough one from the beginning,” said one GOP operative working on Senate races, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the landscape.

Democrats are not letting up, recognizing that the contest in the purple state could still be close.

“A Democrat has not won statewide federal office here in nearly two decades, and North Carolina is a 50-50 state,” Cooper campaign manager Jeff Allen said in a statement.

“We’re building a campaign to earn every vote and make sure North Carolinians know that Roy Cooper will fight for them, while Michael Whatley will continue to enrich himself at their expense,” Allen said.

One North Carolina GOP strategist said that while Whatley has been a “fine” candidate, the current political climate coupled with Cooper’s long record in the state may be too much to overcome. And while Republicans have repeatedly hammered Cooper on crime, he still has strong favorability ratings from his time as governor.

“He’s really kind of hard to paint as a radical, ’cause, you know, he’s like Aunt Martha. She’s just been there forever. And so it’s just very difficult to get any traction on that, because, you know, people say, ‘well, Roy’s okay,’” they said.

When told that SLF was moving money from North Carolina to Kansas, the strategist responded: “$6.50 diesel fuel will kick your ass.”