Last week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) logged on to Twitch and live-streamed, playing the video game “Among Us” and urging viewers — ultimately, millions of them — to vote. Just a week earlier, the Biden campaign collaborated with KindaFunnyGames to create a Biden-themed island in the Nintendo game “Animal Crossing: New Horizons.” Observers have noted these politicians were panning for votes, but it was more than that. AOC and other young Congress members have used social media throughout their political careers.
That matters. Recent interview research by the Young Elected Leaders Project (YELP), an initiative of the Eagleton Institute of Politics Center for Youth Political Participation at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, finds young local and state officeholders — those under 35 — are using social media the way AOC does: both to campaign and to represent and connect with constituents.
The younger politicians’ fluent use of social media both increases their opportunities for leadership and changes how they lead if they win. First, social media platforms can make it easier for them to reach potential supporters and run for office. In a way, social media can substitute for traditional financial capital required to campaign. Second, young politicians use social media to voice their political ideas and to connect with voters, constituents and other young politicians. Virtual, ongoing interactions let them answer constituents’ concerns with greater speed and care than non-virtual methods and enable them to act with a greater depth of understanding of their community’s priorities.
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Candidacies and campaigns
Young leaders are using social media to overcome what might otherwise be the high costs, personal and financial, of running. That’s especially meaningful to people under 35, who often lack their older competitors’ financial resources and professional networks. In particular, millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) face serious economic challenges, including substantial debt because of the vastly increased costs of higher education; fewer job opportunities, leaving them dependent on part-time jobs with few or no benefits, and much higher housing costs than those of earlier generations at their ages.
Social media is cost-effective and can reach large numbers of voters without the enormous costs of mailers and TV or radio ads. In a recent extension of a research project launched in 2002, researchers from the Young Elected Leaders Project conducted 12 one-hour interviews with young local and state officeholders (five Republicans, seven Democrats) between 2016 and 2020 with the hopes of gaining a better sense of what motivates young people to run, how they experience campaigning and governing and whether their age affects their style of governing.
The early stages of this interview research have revealed that, similarly to those at the national level, most young officeholders use social media to campaign in a variety of ways: live streams to bring voters into their everyday lives, direct messaging to connect with supporters, and posts to voice their views on issues that matter to their constituents. They also said their use of social media gave them a leg up in helping them gain recognition when they were the new, inexperienced and unfamiliar candidate.
The ability to campaign via social media platforms appears to have enabled these young people to transform motivations into actual runs for office. Among the young leaders who were interviewed, these motivations came from a variety of causes. One prominent theme was the strong desire to give back to their communities and serve through public office. Another recurring motivation was frustrations with “partisan” politics at the national level.
The combination of lower campaign costs and the candidates’ familiarity with social media makes a big difference in putting young leaders into office. This is a trend that seems to be on the rise. Ongoing quantitative data collection by the YELP team on the number of young congressional candidates in the 2020 election already shows an increase compared with the 2018 midterm elections. This is particularly impressive because in 2018, record numbers of women, young people and people of color won congressional seats. In fact, 8.8 percent (and counting) of all 2020 congressional candidates are 35 or younger, roughly 3.4 percentage points higher than in 2018.
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Staying in direct touch with voters
Social media not only made running affordable, but it also offered young candidates and officials a more immediate way to connect with constituents. As digital natives, they are more fluent with technology than previous generations were. Thus, on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter, young candidates and officials respond far more quickly.
Of those interviewed, most young officeholders said they felt always “on call” to their constituents through their social media accounts, especially via direct messaging. This helps them to respond quickly and to better understand the everyday issues that matter to their constituents. One city council member explained how, with direct messaging, he was able to help a constituent with an issue in minutes.
Young politicians also used direct messaging to connect with one another, even across the aisle. Many said they prioritized action over partisan bickering, unlike what they felt mattered to their older counterparts. Social media was one of many means through which they were trying to shift from division to cooperation.
As a group, these young officeholders embody characteristics descriptive of their generation: a desire for responsiveness and quick resolution and disgust with partisan bickering that inhibits action. All of that is visible in how they use social media to connect quickly, any place or time of day and with anyone.
Representing the most populous generation since the boomers
Millennials are the most populous generation since the baby boomers and are turning out to vote. As a result, many campaigns have shifted strategies to reach them. But young politicians like AOC use social media not just to recruit voters, but also to organize how they do their jobs — in ways that can help them serve and represent their constituents.
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Brittany Anlar (@britanlar) is a PhD candidate in political science at Rutgers University and lead research assistant for the Young Elected Leaders Project, an initiative of the Eagleton Institute of Politics Center for Youth Political Participation at Rutgers University at New Brunswick.