House Democrats are pushing for their party to embrace media platforms the Left viewed with skepticism during the 2024 election cycle.
After seeing a string of losses in the House, Senate, and White House in November, some Democratic insiders warned the bruising results warranted a change in media strategy, including going on conservative media outlets and alternative platforms that party chiefs have largely avoided.
Nearly a dozen House Democrats echoed the call to revamp media strategy in comments to Axios, warning that “you’ve got to contest every corner.”
Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME), who was recently reelected in a deep-purple district, in a race that marked the closest in Maine’s history and one of the closest matchups in the country in 2024, said he conducts outreach on conservative radio shows in the state: “Otherwise all they hear is what’s said about you by the other side.”
The Maine Democrat received backlash after refusing to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris this year as she challenged President-elect Donald Trump for the White House. Before he declined to attend the Democratic National Convention, where Harris was declared the party’s nominee, Golden also said he believed Trump would win the election and urged Maine’s representatives to work with the Republican leader after Nov. 5.
He has also embraced comparisons to outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV), a maverick formerly Democratic lawmaker, and said in October he aspired to “reject party loyalty, the idea that there should be some kind of national party with a series of cascading litmus tests and everyone’s gotta follow suit,” and instead pursue a “much more populist” agenda.
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But Golden is far from the only Democratic lawmaker in the lower chamber to express concern about the party’s outreach to voters on right-leaning outlets, such as Fox News, and alternative media platforms, including podcasts, which have seen a massive increase in popularity over the last few years.
“If half the country is watching and we gotta win 50% plus one, how can you reach anybody when you’re not talking where they go?” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) told Axios.
Moskowitz’s bipartisan approach was put in the spotlight when he recently became the first Democrat to join the House’s Department of Government Efficiency Caucus last month. Progressive Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) has likewise signaled that he will work with DOGE, the new initiative Trump created to target bureaucratic waste and inefficiency.
Khanna also said he wanted to see Democrats engage more with platforms they may have previously found uncomfortable.
“My view is, as much engagement as possible is good,” he commented.
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) told Axios, “We need to speak to people who don’t consume news as a hobby. … That’s not just going on Fox News. … It’s going on places of culture, sports, different things like that.”
The softening tone toward conservative and alternative media comes after Republicans embraced the platforms, with Trump particularly using podcasts and similar venues to help fuel his victory on Election Day.
The 2024 election was the first that saw both candidates making appearances on multiple podcasts, such as Harris appearing on the Call Her Daddy podcast and Trump appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience, to promote their campaigns, utilizing a media field that has vastly grown in popularity.
Adweek wrote in an analysis Tuesday that alternative media and conservative platforms have cemented their hold on the electorate. Fox News was the No. 1 network throughout the 2024 presidential election season, finishing 2024 with “the highest share of the cable news audience in nearly a decade, and mark[ing] nine consecutive years as the highest rated network on television.”
The marketing and advertising company also confirmed that even as some networks, such as Fox News, have managed to defy overall trends, many legacy outlets are struggling to stay afloat as alternative media gains traction. Eighteen networks saw a 25% ratings decline this year when compared to the 2020 election cycle, according to Adweek.
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Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) said he believes “one of the lessons learned from the 2024 election is that we have all but ceded alternative media to the conservative movement.”
“If we have confidence in our message, we should be prepared to take our message to every corner of the ecosystem — including in politically hostile environments,” he added.