Political Influencers and 2026: What Candidates Need to Know

Influencers can help make your campaign in 2026!

Yes, I know there was a controversial article in Wired this past week about Democratic influencers. I am not going to comment on that. What I am going to talk about is what I have learned about political social media influencers and how they are going to impact the 2026 elections.

Photo by Diggity Marketing on Unsplash

The Work Behind Social Media Content

Creating content for social media is work. For many influencers, it is a job. For some, it is a second job. For a lucky few, it is their only job. But for most influencers, it is unpaid work.

Candidates often underestimate the effort that goes into producing consistent content. They should not.

Macro vs. Micro Influencers

Candidates need to understand the difference between macro and micro influencers.

• Macro influencers are the big names you see everywhere: Brian Tyler Cohen, Murder She Wrote, JoJoFromJerz. They focus on national issues and big breaking news.

• Micro influencers are closer to home. They focus on your state, city, county, or even a neighborhood. They educate locals about what is happening politically. These influencers often cost more to book, and sometimes you have to go through an agent.

Most candidates should be researching micro influencers in the districts where they are running. They are easier to contact and often easier to negotiate with.

What to Look For in an Influencer

When evaluating an influencer, consider:

• Location

• Number of followers

• Tone and style of content

• Authenticity: Do viewers trust them?

When to Use Influencers

Influencers are valuable when you need people in local areas to get to know you.

At a digital summit I attended in March, campaign experts from both parties shared their strategies. The Democratic campaigns that used micro influencers performed significantly better than those that did not.

Authenticity is everything. Never work with an influencer who does not believe in you. Get to know them, make sure they know your platform, and trust them to speak honestly about you. Do not script them too tightly. Instead, ask them to highlight issues that resonate with them and with their audiences.

Lessons from Mothers Against Greg Abbott

At Mothers Against Greg Abbott, we experimented with influencers, and I learned a lot.

Our first ad to go viral was Nothing Changes. It took a week and a half after we premiered it at the Texas Democratic Convention, but once it took off, it kept going. When we released Whose Choice, things exploded. We DID NOT use influencers; it was all organic.

I was not prepared. We rarely sent emails, we hardly ever asked for money, and suddenly, everything we did was blowing up. If I had been more prepared, I could have raised more money and tapped into more earned media.

Lesson learned: Have your infrastructure ready before you work with influencers. Build your email lists, set up donation pages, and make it easy for people to get involved. That helps both you and the influencers.

Later, we used macro influencers for the first time for the Greg Abbott Advent Calendar and Always and Forever. Both were successful because by then, we already had several viral videos.

But by 2023, the landscape shifted. Elon Musk bought Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram changed rapidly, and video uploads worked differently across platforms. Strategies from 2022 no longer worked. For example, donation links became harder to share.

When we released Thoughts and Prayers in 2023, it performed well organically but flopped when pushed through influencers. What worked that time was the network of organizations we partnered with and the organic reach we had already built. Algorithms had shifted, videos were being reposted by influencers without credit, and our organization lost control of our messaging. We invested a lot of money, and it didn’t pay off on the influencer side.

Final Thoughts

I still believe that using influencers is a smart choice. It is worth it if you trust the influencer, if they believe in your campaign, and if you have your campaign infrastructure in place.

Yours in resistance,
Nancy Thompson