Democrats' new digital strategy tops trending charts but also draws mockery from allies and foes

WASHINGTON (AP) — For weeks, Democratic lawmakers have met with and mimicked figures they believe may offer them a path back to power in Washington: online influencers and content creators.

Hours before President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress this month, Senate Democrats huddled with a dozen online progressive personalities who have millions of followers. House Democrats were introduced, without staff, to 40 content creators who Democratic leaders said could help them grow their audience online.

An earlier tutorial session in February featured online personalities like the YouTube commentator Brian Tyler Cohen.

The result has been a burst of Democratic online content, including direct-to-camera explainers in parked cars, scripted vertical videos, podcast appearances and livestreams — some topping trending charts online, others drawing mockery from liberal allies and Republicans in Congress.

But while the Democratic Party is largely divided over the path forward after last year's election losses, party leaders agree that, no matter the message, how they connect with voters in the digital media landscape will be key to a political comeback.

More than a dozen Democratic senators, asked about the party’s digital strategy, pointed to Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey as the architect of their new push.

“We’ve seen tremendous growth of Democratic senators now. They’re engaging in the tools and strategies necessary to elevate their voice in a new, changing media market, where legacy media is not the place that people get their news now,” Booker said. “We’re just weeks into this, but just by making key changes ... we’re seeing a massive growth in engagement with the content that our senators are creating, and we’ve only just begun."

Booker said he's aiming for Democratic senators to double online engagement with their content over the next year — and early metrics have been noticeable. Democratic senators racked up more than 87 million views on content they published in response to Trump's joint address to Congress, according to Booker's office.

Not all of that online engagement is positive. After more than two dozen Democratic senators posted identical scripted videos knocking Trump's speech, saying he should have addressed the cost of living and his support for billionaire adviser Elon Musk, conservatives mocked them as inauthentic and out of touch.

"They are all actors reading a script," Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns.

There's no doubt that Democrats are playing catch-up. Trump and his fellow Republicans built a digital operation that fed on bombast and celebrity, and it's a strategy they've taken with them to the White House. Official government accounts are new filled with right-wing memes, cinematic videos and pugnacious statements.

The Democratic embrace of influencers has also yielded mixed early results. Democrats were ridiculed online after a food and wellness influencer who attended the House Democrats' creators event created a “Choose Your Fighter" video collage of Democratic congresswomen for Women's History Month.

The White House posted a video in response that read “America chose its fighters last November,” and the Pentagon, normally known for being studiously non-partisan, posted a video stating “We chose our fighters a long time ago.”

But Booker and other Democratic leaders don't consider the sneers to be a downside. Missteps are to be expected, they say, but the path to Americans' attention will require some discomfort from lawmakers.

“I do think that the caucus as a whole is trying to figure out how we show people that we are real people,” said Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, one of the congresswomen featured in the viral “Fighter” video. Crockett, whose posts regularly garner millions of views online, said she was used to criticism for her often frank statements and was more interested in combating perceptions that Democrats are “elitist” or “robotic.”

“I didn't like the jumping, I'm going to be honest, though,” Crockett added about the viral “Choose Your Fighter” video.

Democrats adopted a more combative stance online in recent weeks as Trump's moves to slash the federal workforce drew protests from liberals and pushback at GOP town halls. Top Democratic digital operatives who worked for the 2024 presidential campaign of then-Vice President Kamala Harris have been in high demand, with many Democrats anticipating close 2026 races in which digital strategies may be key.

Some of the most prominent Democrats across the country have been engaging more in new media since the election. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York has touted the party's message on progressive podcasts over the last month, including from the comedian Jon Stewart and the progressive outlet MeidasTouch. Clips of those videos were also lampooned online but garnered millions of views.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential Democratic presidential contender in 2028, has launched a podcast of his own on which he has welcomed close Trump allies like the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and former Trump aide Steve Bannon to discuss hot-button political topics.

“We want to make sure we hit the podcasters that normally don’t have Democrats on there,” said Rep. Derek Tran, a Democrat from a competitive California House district. “The ones that are more right-leaning or independent, and be able to address a crowd and an audience that’s not typical for the Democratic base.”

Some House Democrats have expressed frustration that the guidance from Democratic leaders about social media is too vague, while others grumble that leaders are too prescriptive in their approach to messaging on platforms they don’t intuitively understand. Meanwhile, Democratic strategists have cautioned lawmakers that garnering attention online is secondary to the goal of using social media as a tool in specific policy fights and campaigns.

“I think there’s a fine line before we’re being cringe and trying too hard and seeming too thirsty. I think the most important thing in any of this is being as authentic and genuine as we can be,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif.

“When it comes to authenticity, it also means leaning into what makes each of us unique. Like many of my colleagues probably should not be doing ‘get ready with me’ videos. It would look super cringe. But I’m a 36-year-old woman, and I do my makeup all the time, and I watch a lot of makeup tutorial videos, so it makes sense for me to do it,” said Jacobs.

Some Democrats think that the party's messaging strategy hinges as much on the messengers as the medium it’s communicated on.

“If you know how to talk to people, it doesn’t matter what medium is going to exist,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego, a freshman Democratic senator from Arizona. “You could be the best freaking spokesperson in the world, but if you don’t know how to talk to working-class people, it doesn’t matter if you have the best TikTok following, it’s just not going to translate.”

FILE - Malcolm Kenyatta, center, a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, poses with DNC content creators Kory Aversa, from left, Johnny Palmadessa and Alexander Pearlman at the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 22, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

FILE - Content creators Kerry Robertson, from left, Sari Beth Rosenberg and Juan Acosta Macias are pictured during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Aug. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

FILE - Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — With massive job cuts, the National Weather Service is eliminating or reducing vital weather balloon launches in eight northern locations, which meteorologists and former agency leaders said will degrade the accuracy of forecasts just as severe weather season kicks in.

The normally twice-daily launches of weather balloons in about 100 locations provide information that forecasters and computer models use to figure out what the weather will be and how dangerous it can get, so cutting back is a mistake, said eight different scientists, meteorologists and former top officials at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — the weather service's parent agency.

The balloons soar 100,000 feet in the air with sensors called radiosondes hanging about 20 feet below them that measure temperature, dew point, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction.

“The thing about weather balloons is that they give you information you can't get any other way,” said D. James Baker, a former NOAA chief during the Clinton administration. He had to cut spending in the agency during his tenure but he said he refused to cut observations such as weather balloons. “It's an absolutely essential piece of the forecasting system.”

University of Oklahoma environment professor Renee McPherson said, “This frankly is just dangerous.”

“Bad,” Ryan Maue, who was NOAA's chief scientist at the end of President Donald Trump's first term, wrote in an email. “We should not degrade our weather system by skipping balloon launches. Not only is this embarrassing for NOAA, the cessation of weather balloon launches will worsen America's weather forecasts.”

Launches will be eliminated in Omaha, Nebraska, and Rapid City, South Dakota, “due to a lack of Weather Forecast Office (WFO) staffing,” the weather service said in a notice issued late Thursday. It also is cutting from twice daily to once daily launches i n Aberdeen, South Dakota; Grand Junction, Colorado; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Gaylord, Michigan; North Platte, Nebraska and Riverton, Wyoming.

The Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency fired hundreds, likely more than 1,000, NOAA workers earlier this year. The government then sent out letters telling probationary employees let go that they will get paid, but should not report to work.

Earlier this month, the agency had announced weather balloon cuts in Albany, New York and Gray, Maine, and in late February, it ended launches in Kotzebue, Alaska. That makes 11 announced sites with reduced or eliminated balloon observations, or about one out of nine launch locations which include part of the Pacific and Caribbean.

Among regularly reporting weather stations, NOAA had averaged about only one outage of balloon launches a day from 2021 to 2024, according to an Associated Press analysis of launch data.

Meteorologists Jeff Masters and Tomer Burg calculate that 14 of 83 U.S. balloon sites, or 17%, are doing partial or no launches. That includes two stations that aren't launching because of a helium shortage and a third that is hindered because of coastal erosion.

“The more data we can feed into our weather models, the more accurate our forecasts, but I can’t speculate on the extent of future impacts,” weather service spokesperson Susan Buchanan said in an email.

University at Albany meteorology professor Kristen Corbosiero looked at the map of launches Friday and said “wow, that is an empty area ... That's not great.”

Corbosiero works in the building where the Albany weather service used to go to the roof to launch twice-daily weather balloons. It's now down to one at night, which she said it is worrisome heading into severe weather season.

“For those of us east of the Rocky Mountains, this is probably the worst time of year,” said Oklahoma's McPherson. “It's the time of year that we have some of our largest tornado outbreaks, especially as we move into April and May.”

Former National Weather Service Director Elbert “Joe” Friday said the weather balloons get “the detailed lower atmospheric level of temperature and humidity that can determine whether the atmosphere is going to be hot enough to set off severe storms and how intense they might be.”

Satellites do a good job getting a big picture and ground measurements and radar show what's happening on the ground, but the weather balloons provide the key middle part of the forecasting puzzle — the atmosphere — where so much weather brews, several meteorologists said.

All of the 10 announced reductions are in the northern part of the United States. That's about where the jet stream — which is a river of air that moves weather systems across the globe — is this time of year, so not having as many observations is especially problematic, McPherson and Corbosiero said.

Weather balloons are also vital for helping forecast when and where it will rain, said Baker and another former NOAA chief, Rick Spinrad.

The weather agency has been launching balloons regularly since the 1930s. During World War II, weather balloon launches in the Arctic helped America win the air battle over Europe with better forecasts for planes, former weather chief Friday said.

It takes 90 minutes to an hour to fill a weather balloon with helium or hydrogen, get it fitted with a sensor, then ready it for launch making sure the radiosonde doesn't drag on the ground, said Friday, who recalled launching a balloon in Nome, Alaska with 30 mph winds and windchill of about 30 degrees below zero.

Meteorologists then track the data for a couple hours before the balloon falls back to the ground for a total of about four of five hours work for one person, Friday said.

“It's kind of fun to do,” Friday said on Friday.

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Data journalist Mary Katherine Wildeman contributed from Hartford, Connecticut.

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FILE - A National Weather Service weather balloon sits ready for launch in the Upper Air Inflation Building at the National Weather Service, April 27, 2006, in Sterling, Va. (AP Photo/Chris Greenberg, File)