Ben Wikler, the chair of Wisconsin’s Democratic Party and a leading contender to run the country’s, has won some acclaim from liberals for making an obvious point: Candidates need to go where the voters are. In terms of media, that means nontraditional and less politicized sources such as podcasts, YouTube and TikTok.
The 2024 presidential election featured a novel demographic split in which Kamala Harris did dramatically worse with voters who don’t follow political news closely than with those who do. Wikler (disclosure: we went to college together) is basically correct that Democrats need to be present in a wider range of media outlets, including right-leaning ones. But Democrats need to do more than just show up. What they say, and how they say it, is as important as where they say it.
