By MATT BROWN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — For weeks, Democratic lawmakers have met with and mimicked figures they believe may offer them a path back to power in Washington: online influencers and content creators.

Hours before President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress this month, Senate Democrats huddled with a dozen online progressive personalities who have millions of followers. House Democrats were introduced, without staff, to 40 content creators who Democratic leaders said could help them grow their audience online.

An earlier tutorial session in February featured online personalities like the YouTube commentator Brian Tyler Cohen.

The result has been a burst of Democratic online content, including direct-to-camera explainers in parked cars, scripted vertical videos, podcast appearances and livestreams — some topping trending charts online, others drawing mockery from liberal allies and Republicans in Congress.

But while the Democratic Party is largely divided over the path forward after last year’s election losses, party leaders agree that, no matter the message, how they connect with voters in the digital media landscape will be key to a political comeback.

Democrats are aiming to double engagement with digital content

More than a dozen Democratic senators, asked about the party’s digital strategy, pointed to Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey as the architect of their new push.

FILE – Content creators Kerry Robertson, from left, Sari Beth Rosenberg and Juan Acosta Macias are pictured during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Aug. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

“We’ve seen tremendous growth of Democratic senators now. They’re engaging in the tools and strategies necessary to elevate their voice in a new, changing media market, where legacy media is not the place that people get their news now,” Booker said. “We’re just weeks into this, but just by making key changes … we’re seeing a massive growth in engagement with the content that our senators are creating, and we’ve only just begun.”

Booker said he’s aiming for Democratic senators to double online engagement with their content over the next year — and early metrics have been noticeable. Democratic senators racked up more than 87 million views on content they published in response to Trump’s joint address to Congress, according to Booker’s office.

But the Democrats’ digital efforts also draw Republican mockery

Not all of that online engagement is positive. After more than two dozen Democratic senators posted identical scripted videos knocking Trump’s speech, saying he should have addressed the cost of living and his support for billionaire adviser Elon Musk, conservatives mocked them as inauthentic and out of touch.

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“They are all actors reading a script,” Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns.

There’s no doubt that Democrats are playing catch-up. Trump and his fellow Republicans built a digital operation that fed on bombast and celebrity, and it’s a strategy they’ve taken with them to the White House. Official government accounts are new filled with right-wing memes, cinematic videos and pugnacious statements.

The Democratic embrace of influencers has also yielded mixed early results. Democrats were ridiculed online after a food and wellness influencer who attended the House Democrats’ creators event created a “Choose Your Fighter” video collage of Democratic congresswomen for Women’s History Month.

The White House posted a video in response that read “America chose its fighters last November,” and the Pentagon, normally known for being studiously non-partisan, posted a video stating “We chose our fighters a long time ago.”

But Booker and other Democratic leaders don’t consider the sneers to be a downside. Missteps are to be expected, they say, but the path to Americans’ attention will require some discomfort from lawmakers.

“I do think that the caucus as a whole is trying to figure out how we show people that we are real people,” said Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, one of the congresswomen featured in the viral “Fighter” video. Crockett, whose posts regularly garner millions of views online, said she was used to criticism for her often frank statements and was more interested in combating perceptions that Democrats are “elitist” or “robotic.”

“I didn’t like the jumping, I’m going to be honest, though,” Crockett added about the viral “Choose Your Fighter” video.

Trump prompts a more aggressive digital posture

Democrats adopted a more combative stance online in recent weeks as Trump’s moves to slash the federal workforce drew protests from liberals and pushback at GOP town halls. Top Democratic digital operatives who worked for the 2024 presidential campaign of then-Vice President Kamala Harris have been in high demand, with many Democrats anticipating close 2026 races in which digital strategies may be key.

Some of the most prominent Democrats across the country have been engaging more in new media since the election. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York has touted the party’s message on progressive podcasts over the last month, including from the comedian Jon Stewart and the progressive outlet MeidasTouch. Clips of those videos were also lampooned online but garnered millions of views.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential Democratic presidential contender in 2028, has launched a podcast of his own on which he has welcomed close Trump allies like the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and former Trump aide Steve Bannon to discuss hot-button political topics.

“We want to make sure we hit the podcasters that normally don’t have Democrats on there,” said Rep. Derek Tran, a Democrat from a competitive California House district. “The ones that are more right-leaning or independent, and be able to address a crowd and an audience that’s not typical for the Democratic base.”

Democrats divide on message vs. messaging

Some House Democrats have expressed frustration that the guidance from Democratic leaders about social media is too vague, while others grumble that leaders are too prescriptive in their approach to messaging on platforms they don’t intuitively understand. Meanwhile, Democratic strategists have cautioned lawmakers that garnering attention online is secondary to the goal of using social media as a tool in specific policy fights and campaigns.

“I think there’s a fine line before we’re being cringe and trying too hard and seeming too thirsty. I think the most important thing in any of this is being as authentic and genuine as we can be,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif.

“When it comes to authenticity, it also means leaning into what makes each of us unique. Like many of my colleagues probably should not be doing ‘get ready with me’ videos. It would look super cringe. But I’m a 36-year-old woman, and I do my makeup all the time, and I watch a lot of makeup tutorial videos, so it makes sense for me to do it,” said Jacobs.

Some Democrats think that the party’s messaging strategy hinges as much on the messengers as the medium it’s communicated on.

“If you know how to talk to people, it doesn’t matter what medium is going to exist,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego, a freshman Democratic senator from Arizona. “You could be the best freaking spokesperson in the world, but if you don’t know how to talk to working-class people, it doesn’t matter if you have the best TikTok following, it’s just not going to translate.”

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ROCHESTER, Minn. — Some Minnesota researchers’ grants from the National Institutes of Health were abruptly canceled last week.

“NIH notified us via an email that basically said, ‘This project no longer reflects the priorities of NIH, and so funding is terminated immediately,’” said Michael Bronstein, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

Bronstein’s study on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among people with severe mental illness is one of at least 209 projects that had their NIH awards terminated since late February, via a list released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System.

The bulk of the terminated grants on the TAGGS list had to do with vaccine hesitancy, HIV, Black or Latino communities, and/or sex, gender and LGBTQ+ identities.

Nearly half of the terminated grants were connected to Columbia University in New York City. On the social media platform X, NIH said those cuts follow “directives from the Trump Administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism.”

Columbia is under fire for its handling of pro-Palestinian campus protests during the Israel-Hamas war, and the Trump administration has pulled $400 million in federal money and threatened billions more if it does not comply with its demands.

The Minnesota terminations affect three projects at the University of Minnesota, including Bronstein’s, and two projects at the HealthPartners Institute, which is the research and education arm of the Bloomington-based health care provider and insurer.

The list did not include any cuts to NIH funding related to Mayo Clinic research.

In addition to Bronstein’s study, the canceled Minnesota grants focused on the COVID-19 vaccine and lactation, HPV vaccine promotion by dental providers, and disparities in parenting stress and well-being during the pandemic across gender, sexual identity, race and ethnicity.

Bronstein — a psychologist — and his team were one year into their four-year study, which he said was inspired by Minnesota’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout in 2021, when certain vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, were prioritized for vaccine distribution. The vulnerable groups list did not include those with severe mental illness.

“We already knew that people with severe mental illness are about three times more likely to die from vaccine-preventable diseases like influenza or COVID-19,” Bronstein said. “So, I wanted to do something about that.”

Bronstein, two research assistants and a team of graduate students recruited participants into their study to see if different factors, such as prior experiences with the mental health care system, influenced people’s willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

His lab received $187,261 in 2024, per the project’s NIH page. But on March 10, NIH canceled the award.

“This is already after investment of taxpayer money,” Bronstein said, “already after investment of a significant amount of time on behalf of my staff and myself, and time for our participants, who trusted us to talk about their mental health experiences.”

Now, Bronstein and his team are in the process of applying for new funding to support this project — and to keep their staff and students employed.

“That’s been quite a scramble,” he said. “And then just trying to reassure my employees that, ‘Hey, we’re going to do everything we can to ensure the longevity of this group and to ensure that this research still continues.’ ”

In addition to the NIH email’s reasoning that Bronstein’s project no longer reflected the agency’s priorities, Bronstein said it also claimed the project would not “benefit the American people or their well-being,” which Bronstein said is “quite disrespectful of people who will and have lost loved ones to vaccine-preventable diseases.”

“(That) part is blatantly and factually incorrect and directly contradicts what our expert reviewers said about the project,” he said.

An appeals process exists for terminated NIH grants, Bronstein said, but he expects that process to be difficult, as “they’ve decided to de-prioritize this work and their initial email indicates that they don’t actually care about the facts related to the work.”

In a statement, HealthPartners told the Rochester Post Bulletin it is not participating in interviews on this topic at this time. The Post Bulletin reached out to the University of Minnesota and the NIH but did not receive responses.

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