Local election campaigns are increasingly online.
In the Seattle mayor’s race, progressive organizer Katie Wilson has embraced short-form social media videos and interviews with online content creators and podcasters in an effort to reach a broader — and, critically, younger — group of voters. Incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell, on the other hand, has mostly done interviews with traditional media. He only started posting short-form videos in earnest after the August primary, which he lost to Wilson by nearly 10 points.
The growing role of social media mirrors national trends. In races across the country, more candidates are trying to talk to influencers — and act like them — to reach voters.
“The media landscape has changed substantially, and campaigns are having to adjust,” said Sandeep Kaushik, a local political consultant, adding that the shift has worked to the advantage of younger candidates like Wilson who are “more fluent in the nuances of our increasingly fragmented social media landscape.”
Wilson, 43, entered the mayor’s race with limited name recognition. Kaushik attributes part of her surprise primary success to her campaign’s digital savviness. He thinks Harrell, 67, is now trying to catch up.
Local influencers
In May, back when her candidacy was still considered a longshot, Wilson appeared on an episode of Lobbing Scorchers, a podcast about the Seattle Sounders hosted by Noah Riffe and Ari Liljenwall. The show has about 2,500 subscribers on YouTube, and a similar number on other social media platforms.
Riffe said he invited Wilson to come on the show after running into her at a farmers market. At first, Liljenwall was surprised she said yes.
“Why would she want to come on a soccer show?” Liljenwall said. “What’s the overlap there?”
The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Lobbing Scorchers is about soccer, not politics, but it does have a dedicated local listener base.
The hosts chatted with Wilson about the Sounders, but also about affordable housing, political participation and homelessness.
Riffe thinks politicians are starting to see the value of platforms like his: “You can get access to a really trusting audience,” he said.
“We’re coming outside the normal channels. So any way that we can get our message out, any audiences that we can speak with, we’re going to do it."Alex Gallo-Brown, Katie Wilson campaign manager
It’s a lesson Democrats nationally have been grappling with in the wake of the 2024 presidential election, where Donald Trump famously courted young male voters by going on the Joe Rogan Experience and other bro-centric podcasts.
“When Trump would go on Logan Paul and stuff, I would see that and be like, ‘God that’s such terrible content, but it’s smart,’” Liljenwall said. “And Katie Wilson coming on our show, it’s just like the polar opposite of that.”
In addition to the soccer podcasters, Wilson has also done interviews with left-wing YouTubers, and streamers. She’s also appeared with other local content creators who don’t normally focus on politics. She’s appeared in videos on Instagram with people like baseball blogger John Trupin and food influencer Kenji López-Alt, who has more than 850,000 followers on the platform.
Because Wilson entered the race as a relative unknown, her team has been trying to say yes to basically everyone who asked for an interview, said campaign manager Alex Gallo-Brown.
“We’re coming outside the normal channels,” Gallo-Brown said. “So any way that we can get our message out, any audiences that we can speak with, we’re going to do it.”
Some of Wilson’s interviews with content creators, like the one with López-Alt, were set up proactively by the campaign. “We knew that Kenji was a fan,” Gallo-Brown said, but added most were the result of people reaching out to them.
“I simply reached out to her on Instagram, and they were very interested in talking to me,” said Alex Randall, a local YouTuber who runs a channel called SquidTips about motorcycles and left-wing politics.
In July, Randall recorded interviews with Wilson and Ry Armstrong, another progressive mayoral candidate who did not advance through the primary. Randall said he wanted to interview Wilson because he was excited by her stances on issues like social housing, transit and public restrooms. “She made herself available very quickly,” he said.
Harrell has largely stuck with more traditional media outlets, including an appearance on KIRO’s Gee and Ursula show shortly before the primary. They’re the number one radio show in Seattle for their timeslot, and their listenership skews older.
Harrell said he hasn’t been intentionally avoiding online influencers.
“I would mislead you if I said I spent an inordinate amount of time strategizing on who to talk to,” Harrell said. “We’re pretty flexible and nimble.”
Harrell said he’s happy to talk to pretty much anyone.
“Quite honestly, we’ve probably missed many opportunities where I’m talking to people — and these have been some pretty great conversations — and social media was not used at all,” Harrell said.
Ben Anderstone, a local political consultant, thinks local candidates will increasingly seek out nontraditional media like podcasts and YouTubers as the media landscape continues to fracture. Those shows present an opportunity for candidates to reach voters who don’t normally seek out political content, he said, and for candidates to build “personality and rapport outside of their formal political brand.”
The pizza video
In May, two months after she announced her candidacy, Wilson posted a two-minute video of herself walking down the street with what she said was an $8 slice of pizza and talking about how she thinks high housing costs are inflating restaurant prices in Seattle.
The video went viral — it now has over 96,000 views on Instagram and 53,000 views on TikTok.
“It went crazy,” said Gallo-Brown, Wilson’s campaign manager. “It became clear to us very quickly that this was a way for us to speak to our audience in a way our opponent wasn’t.”
The vocabulary of short-form social media video is different from a traditional campaign ad. Candidates often hold clip-on microphones while walking around somewhere in the city. They’re often talking with community members or doing something lighthearted — like rock climbing or skateboarding — while explaining a specific policy proposal.
The medium “is much more intimate, it’s more personal and it’s more direct,” said Kaushik, the political consultant. “Immediacy and authenticity seems to be really critical.”
Wilson’s use of the video medium has clear parallels with New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a fellow progressive whose savvy approach to social media has been lauded as a blueprint for Democrats across the country. In early June, a few days after the New York City primary election, Wilson’s campaign reported that it had purchased a phone stabilizer and wireless microphone system for shooting social media videos.
Wilson acknowledged the Mamdani comparisons in a September social media video of herself shopping for a debate outfit at Goodwill with local activist Andrew Ikechukwu Ashiofu.
“A lot of people have been calling me the Zohran Mamdani of Seattle,” Wilson said in the video. “As we all know, Zohran is charismatic, telegenic and stylish. I, on the other hand, am deeply awkward…”
Gallo-Brown said Wilson’s videos are entirely scripted, filmed and edited by volunteers. One of the people running the campaign Instagram account is only 19.
Washington state law prohibits candidates from spending money to promote social media advertisements. That means candidates posting social media content have to rely on their videos spreading organically, said Travis Ridout, a professor at Washington State University who studies political advertising.
“Characteristics like being telegenic, having charisma, having some authenticity, are more important nowadays,” Ridout said. “Because that’s what makes those ads go viral.”
The incumbent gets on TikTok
During the primary, Harrell only posted a few videos on his Instagram account. They were all clips of traditional campaign ads that aired on TV, with professional production, inspirational music, a voiceover list of accomplishments and a “paid for by Harrell for Seattle” tag at the end.
Short-form video “is much more intimate, it’s more personal and it’s more direct. Immediacy and authenticity seems to be really critical."Sandeep Kaushik, political consultant
Since the August primary, Harrell has been posting a lot more short-form videos that feel native to social media. He’s dressed casually — often talking to community members in different neighborhoods. His campaign also launched a TikTok account and started posting videos.
Harell said he’s been inspired by the use of short-form social media videos by people like San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, and Seattle Port Commissioner Sam Cho. In an interview, he acknowledged that he’s “no expert in social media by any stretch of the imagination.”
“How people receive their news is changing, we have to acknowledge that,” Harrell said. “Kudos to my opponent, or anyone else that’s using social media to their benefit. I have to acknowledge that’s a trend that’s moving forward, and we’ll try to use it the best we can.”
It’s not just the mayor’s race — almost all the candidates for Seattle elected office this year have stepped up their use of short-form social media video. The popularity of the medium is “not a lesson that’s been lost on them,” said Anderstone, the political consultant.
In August, the City of Seattle created a TikTok account and began posting short-form videos of Harrell out in the community talking casually into a clip-on mic. A citizen filed an official ethics complaint, alleging that Harrell was using city resources to promote his campaign. The city’s Ethics and Elections Commission dismissed the complaint, finding that the use of TikTok didn’t violate any policies.
Cross-endorsement
Wilson’s conversations with content creators tend to be pretty friendly — most are open about the fact that they support her politics. Those types of appearances have a dynamic that’s different from a traditional media interview, said Mark Smith, a University of Washington professor who studies political communications.
“These podcasts are different, I think it’s seen as an endorsement on both sides,” Smith said. “Generally, the podcast host will invite on somebody that they tend to like. They want to have a friendly conversation.”
The dynamic can create challenges. Shortly before the primary, Wilson did an an hour interview with Ian Kochinski, a prominent left-wing YouTuber and streamer better known as Vaush.
Like many people who spend all day talking about politics online, Kochinski has a history of edgy statements. After the interview, Harrell’s campaign put out a press release attacking Wilson for agreeing to an interview with a “notorious YouTube streamer.”
“Why would Wilson grant an interview to a controversial content provider who said: ‘I have yet to hear a convincing moral or legal argument as to why possession of child pornography should be illegal?’” the statement said, referencing a quote from a livestream several years ago.
Kochinski maintains that he was making a hypothetical argument about child labor exploitation that has been taken out of context. Wilson’s campaign manager said they weren’t aware of the statements, and might not have done the interview if they knew.
Responsibility
It’s unclear how well the influencer approach will translate at the local level. There aren’t as many influencers who solely focus on Seattle. The audience is smaller and the financial incentives aren’t really there.
Randall, the leftist YouTuber who runs SquidTips, has about 179,000 subscribers. He said his video with Wilson and Armstrong didn’t do as well as his other videos about national politics. He’s okay with that.
“I expected only local people to watch it,” Randall said. “And the people who watched it got a lot of value out of it. I’ve seen a lot more people talking about doing canvassing, engaging, talking about engaging with people around them.”
(Randall said he was fired from his job at Nordstrom last month after online conservative activists came after him because of his actions in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. He now plans to pursue YouTube full time.)
The hosts of the soccer podcast Lobbing Scorchers have a relatively small platform — they don’t think they have the power to swing an election. But they’re aware they do have some level of influence. The hosts said they saw a few comments from people who found out about Wilson from their podcast, and were excited to vote because of it.
“That adds a layer of stress and responsibility to us,” Riffe said.
The hosts aren’t subtle about their enthusiasm for Wilson, but they said they’re trying to take their newfound responsibility seriously. They’d love to have Harrell on their show.
“Genuienly, Bruce, come on the show,” Riffe said. “We’re open to chatting, and we have a platform, so come and use it.”
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