Influencers get first-class access to the DNC as part of Harris' campaign strategy

Chicago
CNN
—

Vice President Kamala Harris taped three interviews at the Democratic National Convention this week, but none of them were with any of the 15,000 accredited journalists here in Chicago. Instead, they were with social media influencers, including Vidya Gopalan, a North Carolina mom known to her 3.4 million TikTok followers as @queencitytrends.

Gopalan, who mostly posts lifestyle content, asked Harris to reflect on their shared Indian heritage and memories of spending time in India with her grandfather. The video posted on Tuesday has more than 1.9 million views.

With this commitment, the Harris campaign recognized that Democrats must go beyond traditional media strategy and explore new ways to reach voters in the countdown to Election Day.

Part of that strategy is creating original content, including on the popular @KamalaHQ account across all platforms. The other – and arguably more important – part is leveraging the power of influencers. There's a plan, officials say, to reach Americans – and young voters in particular. And that's increasingly happening on social media platforms.

“You have to reach the eyes and ears of voters where they are — and that's them eating lunch, on their lunch break, scrolling through their phone. They're sitting on the subway scrolling through their phone. They're sitting on the couch with the TV on and watching CNN, maybe on silent, scrolling through their phone. They're walking their dog and looking at their phone,” said Alex Pearlman, a self-described “ranting comedian” known on TikTok as @pearlmania500, who has 2.7 million followers.

Pearlman is one of 200 content creators accredited to the DNC this week, marking an unprecedented effort by Democrats to engage that community. Throughout the United Center, there are several “creator lounges,” rooms with mirrors and ring lights and charging stations where the creators, many of whom have long followed each other but never met in person, network and collaborate. They are on the convention floor in a dedicated “creator platform,” a prime place to watch the events each night. And they meet and interview top Democratic surrogates — including Harris herself.

The creators represent a large part of the internet – and therefore a large number of followers. Some of them have long been politically active, such as Carlos Eduardo Espina, who publishes content on immigration, or Olivia Julianna, who focuses on reproductive rights and other democratic issues. But cooking influencers, beauty experts, comedians and sports presenters are also involved.

“The DNC understands that if you have a group of people with millions of followers, if you bring 200 of them together, you're going to expand your reach,” says Nimay Ndolo, a current affairs comedian with 3.5 million followers across platforms.

But it is a mutually beneficial relationship.

Keith Edwards, a Democratic strategist with 550,000 followers who interviewed Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg this week, said, “Exclusivity is the name of the game. So our presence and our access only helps us grow. It only helps them, and it only helps us help them to be here,” predicting “exponential” growth for this type of engagement at future party conventions.

Access to voices like Buttigieg, he said, “legitimizes me … and also helps him get attention, and in turn helps me expand my audience.”

In conversations with more than a dozen content creators in Chicago this week, influencers praised the Harris campaign's reach as a model for Democrats. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a rising Democratic star who was on Harris's vice presidential ticket, was also “really impressed” with the state of their digital organization.

“The burden is not on the Pennsylvanian to find the Harris campaign. The burden is on the Harris campaign to find that voter. And they're doing an extraordinary job of doing that: knocking on doors and showing up on your 'For You Pages,'” Shapiro told CNN.

And for many Generation Z influencers, the week offered an opportunity to bring some humanity into the political process.

“Social media and speaking directly to people humanizes them in many ways that they don't even realize. We're just disillusioned with a lot of institutions. We grew up, especially Generation Z, and saw these institutions fail us in so many different ways,” says Awa Sanneh, a 23-year-old with 503,000 followers who posts on a range of topics, from the Black Lives Matter movement to her outfit of the day.

Beyond influencers, the growing support in the first few days after Harris was named the Democratic presumptive nominee brought with it something that is hard to buy or build: a coolness factor, from coconut tree memes to the candidate's ubiquity in social media feeds.

“It's really cool to talk about Kamala Harris on the internet,” deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty said in a recent interview. “The amount of people posting and having many, many followers gives people who are sharing content with their friends and family more reach to do that themselves.”

And in a sign of the energy and enthusiasm for the new candidate, several producers CNN spoke to said they would not have been so eager to attend a President Joe Biden convention.

“I don't know if I have a definitive answer for you,” said Raven Schwam-Curtis, a Black and Jewish educator who has 220,000 followers. “But I can say that I am full of energy and excitement and it was very easy for me to agree to come here.”

For Schwam-Curtis, however, the question remains whether the enthusiasm for Harris will also translate into actions at the ballot box.

“It was cute and it was low-key – but to what extent is the memeization of Kamala Harris going to bring Generation Z to the polls?” Schwam-Curtis said.