2024 was dubbed the “podcast election.” This year’s US midterms—and maybe even the 2028 presidential election—are shaping up to be the “everything election.”
It’s tempting to try to slap a single label on the midterms.
We considered the “clipping election” and the “texting election” since Kaya has been getting nonstop political texts for weeks, including one from Ice-T earlier today. The “influencer election” was another obvious choice, given how many non-political creators have been approached by campaigns for partnerships this cycle. (We’ll dive into that more next week.)
But after looking at the data and speaking to political strategists, it seems like there may not be a dominant channel that will define the midterms this year. Voters get their election information in so many different ways, from YouTube and cable news to Instagram and independent newsletters.
“Our Substack has actually exploded. We’ve been seeing growth of like 300% in the past few months,” Marie Baldassare, chief of staff for Democratic Representative Ro Khanna, told us on today’s episode of Scalable. Still, Baldassare added that if she had to pick one platform to focus on, it would be Instagram. Khanna is up for re-election in California, though it’s not a competitive race.
We also began to question whether 2024 really was the “podcast election.” For the first time, political candidates, including both President Donald Trump and then-Vice President Kamala Harris, focused on podcasts to reach and engage voters. Conversations with Trump-friendly, male hosts like Joe Rogan and Theo Von dominated headlines and shaped the narrative around the issues and the candidates.
“Podcasts contributed to the vibes,” Baldassare said. It’s true: 43% of registered voters polled by HarrisX immediately after the 2024 election said podcaster Joe Rogan’s endorsement had the biggest impact on the election, behind only Elon Musk (71%).
But vibes are different than votes. While Rogan helped get young men out to the polls to vote for Trump, there are many reasons why people voted the way they did. In fact, 59% of 2024 voters polled by Sounds Profitable said that a politician’s appearance on a podcast had no effect on their vote.
Similar dynamics seem to be playing out this year. New York Times columnist and podcast host Ezra Klein pointed out that there is almost “no connection” between the candidates who are all over social media and those who are doing well in polls. It’s also worth noting that Trump has largely stayed away from podcasts and vice versa—though he’s not on the ballot.
According to new data from Sounds Profitable, 26% of likely midterm voters who consume podcasts weekly said a candidate’s appearance on a podcast could make them more likely to vote for that candidate. Another 8% said it could make them less likely, which suggests that these appearances don’t always work out in a candidate’s favor.
But not everyone consumes podcasts weekly. And, as the study also notes, the people who are likely to be watching a candidate’s appearance on a podcast are already likely to be fans of either the host or the candidate. Almost two-thirds of likely voters who don’t consume podcasts said a podcast appearance would have no effect on their vote.
On the other hand, podcasts are now much more mainstream than they were two years ago. More people, including those who may not consider themselves podcast consumers, are watching them on Netflix, cable news channels and, increasingly, through clips on social media. Still, we suspect podcasts’ political power is moving away from long, intimate conversations with specific hosts toward clipping, which wasn’t as popular in 2024.
Political strategists we’ve spoken to seem to agree that clipping—and figuring out how to distribute those short videos at scale—will be an important part of the 2028 election cycle. Republicans may already be ahead of Democrats when it comes to running sophisticated clipping operations.
Then there’s Reddit, which Rep. Khanna’s team said has been underused by politicians to promote local events, host “Ask Me Anything” sessions or understand what voters are talking about.
Mainstream news outlets also still matter, including cable news or print publications like The New York Times. “That sets the tone for the day and then there’s a lot of content made around that,” Baldassare said of op-eds penned by politicians.
In short, political candidates have to be everywhere.
For more on how podcasters and creators are shaping the US midterm elections, tune in to our latest podcast.
The Round Up
Reddit is the latest platform to borrow from TikTok, announcing that users can now choose between a “For You” feed and a “Following” feed.
TikTok announced Must Eat, a new restaurant guide in the US. Each city’s list is organized into “Everyday Eats” and “Elevated Dining” and is built on more than 40 million posts, reviews and comments shared on TikTok.
Twitch is doubling down on clipping with Stream Recaps, short highlight reels that help viewers catch up on streams they missed. Top streamers can also opt into Twitch’s distribution partners reposting top moments to other platforms like Instagram and YouTube. These promoted clips point users back to their Twitch channel.
Beehiiv launched podcasting tools, including dynamic ad insertion so that creators can place and replace ads in new and past episodes without re-recording them. Substack announced dynamic ad insertion for podcasts last week.
VeYou, a microdrama app, is shutting down in early November after about six months, Business Insider reported. We predicted that microdrama apps would feel the squeeze as major social apps like TikTok and YouTube push into the space. VeYou’s founder Tommy Harper told BI he would continue producing these series, but instead distribute them on TikTok’s microdrama app PineDrama, YouTube and other partners.
Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year is maxxing. Other words on its short list included affordability, data center, Odyssey and “unc,” which, in case you didn’t know, is slang for uncool or out of touch.
Disclosure Dilemma
A recent video from Alix Earle got us wondering about disclosure rules when a creator has equity in a company, given the rise of these deals.
In the video, Earle shows her morning routine, including taking vitamins from Cymbiotika and plugging that they’re now available at Walmart stores. The post doesn’t mention that she has an equity stake in the supplement brand.
FTC guidelines don’t explicitly address creator equity deals, meaning the rules are murky at best. They do give one example that touches on ownership though: A doctor in a TV ad should disclose if he owns part of the company he’s promoting because viewers wouldn’t expect that.
The FTC declined to comment.
It also comes as some brands are pushing influencers to hide their paid deals, according to a new report from Business Insider.
YouTube Yarns
YouTube’s third-quarter ad revenue rose 9% to $11.2 billion. But parent company Alphabet’s stock fell 12% on Thursday, after overall revenue missed analysts’ expectations.
One stat that stood out to us from the report: During the quarter, viewership in the living room accounted for over one‑third of YouTube’s total ad revenue. That means Instagram has a lot of catching up to do with its own TV app ambitions!
In other news…YouTube is testing an invite-only bonus program for Shorts. Eligible creators in the US, UK, Germany, Brazil, Japan and South Korea can earn cash for uploading Shorts, but specific requirements vary.
Incentives like these have been much more common on Instagram and TikTok, with mixed results: They’re great for motivating those who want to make some quick cash, but they’re not a sustainable source of income.
And there’s no guarantee that creators will continue making content once the money dries up. Remember when Snapchat was giving away $1 million a day for Spotlight videos? Many creators didn’t stick around after that initiative wound down.
Meta Matters: AI Ad Edition
Meta’s AI has been editing ads on its platform without advertisers’ knowledge, including things like adding unwanted images, according to Adweek. That’s caused backlash from brands, some of whom have since turned off the AI features.
We haven’t heard any reports of creators’ posts being affected. But as brands continue to turn more creator content into paid ads, they may not be immune: Meta’s partnership ads grew by 97% year over year and surpassed a $15 billion revenue run rate, per the company’s third quarter earnings.
That could open creators up to reputational harm. Partnership ads are run from a creator’s account, so viewers will likely assume that the creator approved the content, including any edits Meta’s AI may make. And creators may not even know what’s happening until much later, potentially putting them at risk of violating disclosure rules for AI content.
Meta told us that millions of advertisers find value in its AI ad tools and that the features are turned on by default because they’re more likely to improve performance.
📊 By the Numbers: 100+
That’s the number of hours Mel Robbins and her team put into each podcast episode, she told the “Zach Sang Show.”
Up to half of that time goes to prep work, including reading research and books, digging into what Robbins’ audience searches for on specific topics and tracking which episodes people are rewatching.
Creator Moves
Pivot, the podcast hosted by Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, is launching a newsletter on Beehiiv on Nov. 2. The timing coincides with Pivot kicking off its national live tour, for which Beehiiv is the title sponsor for.
Soon, the new media company that publishes tech documentaries on YouTube, signed with CAA for representation. It’s part of a growing trend of media companies, including Betches and the Female Quotient, signing with top Hollywood agencies. Soon was founded by former Vice exec Patrick McGuire and Eoghan McCabe, the CEO of customer service firm Fin.
Ibai Llanos, a popular Spanish streamer, is moving his “La Velada del Año” celebrity boxing and music event exclusively to Netflix from 2027 to 2029. The event, which drew a peak of 9.3 million concurrent viewers last year, previously streamed primarily on Twitch.
👜Brand Buzz
Prada is generating a lot of praise on social media for its hand-drawn holiday campaign that tapped former Disney animator John Pomeroy to illustrate wintery scenes. It’s a sharp contrast to Coca-Cola, which drew heavy backlash for its AI-generated holiday ads over the past two years.
But that doesn’t mean Prada is shying away from AI altogether. Earlier this week, the luxury brand announced it developed a plugin for ChatGPT with Accenture Song in the US, UK and Italy that lets shoppers discover and browse its products and find store information.
Talent Tracker
Kelsey Gray Sherman joined Lego as its first head of celebrity talent and brand first partnerships. Before that, she spent six years at WME.
Cassie Ackemann joined ShopMy to lead the affiliate and creator commerce platform’s push into sports. Most recently, she was director of business development for North America at Greenfly, a sports digital media software company.
