Viral videos are reshaping how U.S. elections are run
WASHINGTON — Before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s jolting primary win over one of the most powerful House Democrats made her a fixture on cable news and the toast of progressives nationwide, there was the shoestring-budget video that got the base buzzing.
By election night last month, more than 1 million people had watched the video with its signature scene of the socialist candidate on a subway platform, changing out of commuter shoes and into heels en route to her restaurant job. A gentrifying New York that is squeezing out working-class families such as hers forms the backdrop. The filmmakers from Detroit, who quit their corporate jobs to help candidates such as Ocasio-Cortez, knew they had something while shooting on that subway platform.
“So many women identify with that because they are like, ‘That is me. I have that pair of shoes in my bag,’” said Naomi Burton, one of the filmmakers. “Yet no one had ever seen that in an ad before.”
A lot of things that had never been seen in political ads have made their way into campaign accounts on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook as the midterm elections approach. Some of them are helping rocket candidates who were barely on the radar in their districts into national prominence.
Online video has been featured in campaigns for years. What makes this election cycle stand out is the frequency with which candidates, especially Democratic women, have used videos to grab the attention of influential activists and donors. On the Democratic side, biographical videos have had enormous appeal to activist audiences desperate to discover candidates with a path to victory in places where the party has long struggled.
That hunger to discover new candidates has coincided with a political moment in which congressional races have been shaken by a surge of unconventional candidates, many of them driven into politics by disgust with the Trump agenda.
“We are seeing candidates willing to take a lot more risks with these videos than they have in the past,” said Julian Mulvey, who produced some of the most memorable videos for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. “There is a competition to stand out, with so many folks trying to navigate their primaries and raise money.”
North of Austin, Texas, for example, a tea party Republican considered to have a safe seat suddenly finds himself facing political peril after his opponent, MJ Hegar, an Air Force veteran and first-time candidate, grabbed national attention with the story of her life, compressed into a gripping 31⁄2-minute biopic.