3 critical ways the Democratic Party messed up its media outreach this cycle

In the wake of Donald Trump’s defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats are engaged in their usual post-election soul-searching. While most pundits and strategists have so far gravitated to broad themes and exit polls — citing everything from voter demographics to economic indicators — this loss highlighted a more functional failure that extends far beyond any single campaign.

The Democratic Party's approach to media engagement, or lack thereof, represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how modern voters consume and process information.

Outside of embracing meme culture, Democrats have increasingly shown an aversion to creative forms of media engagement, often defaulting to standard, passive approaches that don’t cut through the noise — and evidence from this election would suggest that the candidates and the policies are not the problem.

Consider Saginaw County, Mich., one of the nation's most crucial battleground regions. Since 2008, this county has been a reliable predictor of presidential outcomes, though with increasingly narrow margins. Kamala Harris lost the county to Donald Trump, but Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin and first-time congressional candidate Kristen McDonald Rivet achieved impressive victories — the latter winning by a remarkable 6.7 percent.

Democrats, generally speaking, have broadly appealing policies. For instance, while many in the media were quick to criticize Harris’s proposal to cap price increases on groceries, an August poll from The Economist/YouGov found 60 percent of voters supported it while only 27 percent were opposed. It’s policies like these that simply aren’t being communicated in the way that modern audiences demand.

But they suffered from three critical blind spots. The first was earned media. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was a mainstay on cable TV, doing multiple interviews daily, before joining the ticket. He demonstrated such skill that it likely contributed to his selection. Yet afterward, his appearances virtually ceased.

Meanwhile, Pete Buttigieg's “masterclass” performances on “Fox News Sunday” and HBO's “Real Time with Bill Maher” during the summer showed exactly what Democrats were capable of — but these appearances remained exceptions rather than the rule.

While Democrats avoided the media, Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), sometimes took multiple interviews a day, hammering their messages home and creating an endless supply of clippable content.

Second, there was social media, where Democrats really haven’t found a home since Elon Musk bought Twitter. The conversion to X shattered the credibility of the verification system and ignited a wildfire of misinformation that still burns. Many prominent left-leaning voices abandoned the platform with the same intensity they'd shown during other significant political setbacks — but this time, they were surrendering vital communication infrastructure.

Alternatives like BlueSky never gained significant traction, but TikTok did emerge as an effective platform for reaching younger voters. For this, the Harris campaign deserves massive credit. They were quick to meme-ify Vice President Harris in a humanizing way that made her consumable to young people. They used the KamalaHQ account as a means to ruthlessly troll JD Vance, and they leveraged thousands of micro-influencers to carry their messages forward (a strategy they had perfected in the 2022 midterms).

There’s no doubt the success they found here will be a staple of the communication plan going forward, but relying on a Chinese-owned platform facing regulatory scrutiny from the same administration creates its own vulnerabilities. Twitter was different. It was fast and it was serious, and the once-powerful left-leaning social media machine has failed to find a like-for-like replacement.

Finally and most concerning is the Democratic establishment's dismissive attitude toward long-form podcasts. There exists an entire ecosystem of politically adjacent shows focusing on sports, culture and comedy that reach millions of listeners weekly.

There were some late attempts to dabble in this space: Harris’s appearance on Alex Cooper's "Call Her Daddy" podcast and her interview with Charlemagne Tha God, for instance. While important and effective, these appearances were too little, too late, and they were too infrequent to build meaningful momentum with lower propensity voters.

The much-discussed Joe Rogan podcast serves as a perfect case study in how not to approach these opportunities.

While it’s hard to glean ground truth on specifics, it appears both parties — Joe Rogan and the Harris campaign — actually wanted to make it work. But if Rogan’s explanation for the appearance falling apart is to be believed (and that’s a big “if” from someone who regularly hosts conspiracy theorists), the Harris campaign only wanted to do it on its own terms. The Harris campaign even entertaining such an appearance is admirable, but the whole point of making these appearances is to show that you’re comfortable going into foreign environments, carrying on regular conversations on topics that can at times be very difficult.

Democrats need to get out of the headspace that opportunities like this compromise their values or their messaging — they must better understand that authentic engagement requires meeting voters where they are, not where we wish them to be. When politicians try to force traditional on-message campaign appearances into these formats, viewers see through it immediately. Viewed through that lens, I’m glad the interview didn’t happen (though I’ve watched enough Harris interviews and debates to know she would have done brilliantly).

This isn't a call for complete campaign reinvention. Traditional campaign fundamentals — organizing, advertising and voter education — remain critical functions where Democrats still have a sizable expertise advantage. And they work; the final numbers showed Harris did better in states where there was a campaign presence by 2.3 percent. But these must be complemented by a modernized media strategy.

The party has promising communicators who could excel in these spaces and easily close the gap in less than four years. Figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pete Buttigieg, Josh Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer — and yes, absolutely, Kamala Harris herself — have demonstrated the ability to navigate conversations in adversarial environments while maintaining their authenticity and message discipline.

Even Gavin Newsom's willingness to engage in direct debate on Fox News, while perhaps not ideal, shows a recognition that reaching new audiences requires stepping outside traditional comfort zones.

The solution isn't to throw Democrats into the deepest end of hostile media. Appearances on inflammatory shows that prioritize conflict over conversation aren't the answer. Instead, the focus should be on the vast middle ground: politically adjacent platforms that offer fair environments for substantive discussions.

Consider the constellation of podcasts hosted by figures like Lex Fridman and Theo Von, or the Barstool network. While these shows tend to lean conservative, they typically offer guests a friendly environment for normal conversation. These aren't explicitly political spaces, but they reach millions of potential voters who might never tune into a traditional political program.

The era of fearing a single "gotcha" moment is over. In a world where voters are bombarded with information from countless sources, no single media misstep carries the weight it once did. The real risk lies in not engaging at all.

Democrats must invest in progressive media while simultaneously being willing to venture outside their comfort zones. The mainstream media, while important, can no longer be relied upon as the primary conduit to voters. With trust in traditional institutions at historic lows, authentic engagement through diverse media channels isn't just an option — it's a necessity.

Andy Oare is the founder of the strategic communications firm BlueWing Impact. He has worked for the Democrats on the past five presidential campaigns.