JUST FYI
Cory Booker won’t stop posting
No politician in America uses TikTok quite like Cory Booker.
The New Jersey Senator, a once and perhaps future presidential candidate, posts on the app an average of 135 times per month, exponentially more than any other elected official in either party.
Rather than posting like a typical political account, Booker treats his TikTok accounts as a curation and aggregation operation, downloading other users' videos from across social media and re-uploading them as his own, with some original commentary in the caption and a shoutout to the original poster. He often shares content that is incredibly corny or, some would say, cringe: heartwarming clips and inspirational videos that would feel more native on Boomer-saturated Facebook than on the viral video app popular with younger audiences.
Whatever you make of the approach, Booker has racked up more than 329 million views across his two TikTok accounts this year, a record for a Democratic politician in 2026. For comparison, a potential 2028 rival like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has pulled in just 18 million post views on the platform over the same period, while even Gavin Newsom, the one of the most prominent posters in Democratic politics, sits at 165 million, barely half of Booker's total.
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CHARTED
Search interest spikes for Trump’s assistant
Political watchers have long observed the strangely close relationship between President Trump and his assistant and Tweet Stenographer Natalie Harp, but mainstream reporters have rarely touched the subject. So when Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff mentioned at a campaign rally on Sunday that Trump wants to "travel with Natalie," Americans who tuned in rushed to figure out what he was talking about. Here's Google Trends data showing relative search interest for "Natalie Harp" and "trump natalie" spiking after Ossoff's comments.
BIG YIKES
The polling industry’s credibility crisis
The polling industry has had a rough few weeks, collecting massive L's in two of the most hotly contested elections of the past month. First, pollsters far overshot Abdul El-Sayed's margin of victory in the Michigan Senate race, where the progressive insurgent ended up winning by only a hair. Then they flopped again when establishment-backed David Crowley blocked socialist frontrunner Francesca Hong from what many had assumed was a sure victory. Strategists were quick to explain away both misses, but what just happened in Los Angeles is a lot more confounding.
Last week, a firm called Median Strategies released a new poll of the LA Mayor's race showing incumbent Democrat Karen Bass far ahead of her opponent, progressive city councilwoman Nithya Raman.
The Bass campaign immediately shared the poll with the caption, "Doing the work, showing up, and gaining momentum!" The firm, which (to be clear) no one had ever heard of, also released surveys in the Wisconsin and Nevada gubernatorial races. Major anonymous polling aggregators posted those results on X, political reporters reshared them, and news outlets cited them in their coverage.
But there's a problem: Median Strategies' polls were completely fake. When Los Angeles Times reporter Noah Goldberg reached out to the firm to understand its methodology, the people behind it admitted the whole thing was a sham and sent this in response:
"Median Strategies was created as a short term social experiment to examine how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification," the company said in an email to The Times. "We are not seeking publicity or attribution for the individuals involved and are declining interviews."
Great.
Unfortunately, the Median Strategies scam isn't the only sign that parts of the polling industry are turning into one giant grift. I mentioned this earlier this year, but some pollsters have now decided that the solution to the industry's woes is to stop talking to human beings altogether. A handful of polling startups are selling what they call "synthetic sampling," in which firms ask thousands of AI chatbots (programmed to impersonate voters) how they plan to vote, then package the results as a poll. Semafor profiled one such company way back in 2024.
Taken together, the polling industry, which still(!) drives so much political coverage and campaign strategy, is at best losing its ability to police itself and at worst irreparably broken. Until journalists and campaign operatives start treating every unverified survey with a heavier dose of skepticism, its pretty clear bad actors will keep flooding the zone with garbage numbers to gain political advantage.
ROUND-UP
More things you should read or watch this week
YouTube is changing the way it calculates video views. Generally, a video view on the platform meant that someone watched the content for at least 30 seconds. Now, video views will be counted the moment they begin to play — even if a user sees a video and quickly scrolls away — just like they are on TikTok. This will initially cause public viewcounts on the platform to skyrocket, so be aware!
New polling from the Rainey Center found that voters under 35 are four times more likely than seniors to get political news from creators rather than traditional media. Among young Trump voters, 35% said an influencer had changed their mind on an issue — nearly twice the rate among young Harris voters.
Right-wing media entrepreneur Clay Travis is working on a new sports media company after selling his previous endeavor, OutKick, to FOX in 2021.
An Israeli startup is reportedly operating roughly 200 AI-powered “pink slime” local news sites across the U.S.
Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson writes in Fast Company that Democrats should frame the AI debate around who controls the technology, not whether the party supports or opposes it.
After a very tight Wisconsin gubernatorial primary last week, Peter Hamby obtained the 349-page opposition-research dossier that Wisconsin Republicans had assembled on socialist candidate Francesca Hong.
Progressive researcher Adam Bonica documented how Democratic “spam PACs” extract millions of dollars from elderly donors through deceptive fundraising tactics.
NOTUS published a behind the scenes look at the “body people” in the U.S. Senate — the assistants who chase their bosses around the Capitol and do often bizarre tasks.
Asked whether he would allow a vote on Medicare for All if he becomes Speaker, Hakeem Jeffries repeatedly declined to answer directly.
Priorities USA released new research into how low-propensity young voters are consuming information online.
Former Republican Rep. Nancy Mace launched a YouTube show called “Get Maced,” but much of the online attention went to the full tattoo sleeves she showed off in its introduction video.
Hill staffers are using AI tools to generate legislative proposals, and the actual office tasked with writing their bills into legislative text is getting overwhelmed.
David Plouffe penned an NYT op-ed breaking down the Democratic Party’s presidential nominating calendar in 2028 (just released this weekend) and what it will take to win.
ONE LAST THING
Just imagine…
Donald Trump is charging people $100,000 to get early access to his Truth Social posts, presumably so they can do a bit of insider trading on the information he shares.
