When Gavin Newsom needed to hype his redistricting ballot measure, he did it not through MSNBC hits, but livestreamed sit-downs with Substack sensation Heather Cox Richardson, YouTube star Brian Tyler Cohen and TikTok celebrity Mrs. Frazzled.
The Prop 50 campaign was the purest distillation of Newsom’s self-proclaimed obsession with the changing media landscape, an unabashed embrace of the burgeoning liberal influencer ecosystem that is burgeoning at the same time Newsom’s political prospects are on the rise.
Newsom’s team not only courted online content creators; it incorporated them into the campaign apparatus itself, leaning on influencers to help with fundraising, rapid response and in-person events.
“It’s not a program, it’s a way of doing things,” said Lindsey Cobia, a senior political adviser to Newsom. “It is truly ingrained in everything we do.”
Newsom, a likely presidential contender in 2028, has for months argued Democrats are woefully behind in countering the robust conservative mediasphere. His fascination with personalities such as Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk earned him outsized attention — and grief with his base. But he has also been steadily nurturing his ties to the left’s constellation of content creators.
The outreach began not long after the Los Angeles fires in January, when conservative critics of Newsom’s fire response flooded social media. The governor responded with a social media presence that was assertive, snarky and unapologetically online. Since then, he’s seen his national profile grow with every all-caps post on X — and with his frequent appearances on popular liberal programs.
“They were ahead of their time with that and recognized it right away — really before anyone else did,” said Ben Meiselas, co-founder of MeidasTouch, a liberal digital network with a slate of shows that rack up between 500 and 750 million views a month. “Now others are seeing that those types of interviews are getting more attention and having a higher viewership than the cable hits.”
