Politicians keep launching podcasts. Is anyone actually listening?

One of the most frequently cited takeaways from the 2024 presidential election was that podcasts proved an effective way to reach voters, with Donald Trump’s appearances on nearly two dozen shows giving him an edge among certain audiences. Whether or not you agree with that assessment, it’s indisputable that the political podcast industry has attracted significant attention from both national media and elected officials since last November.

This year, politicians in Washington and elsewhere have eagerly traded the 30-second soundbites of cable news hits for the hours-long, unfiltered intimacy of the podcast studio. While many elected officials have been guests on popular podcasts like This Past Weekend with Theo Von or Pod Save America, more than a few have tried their hand at hosting their own shows—with decidedly mixed results.

In the past few years, more than two dozen leading elected officials have attempted to host their own podcasts. However, beyond a few standout successes, most are finding that building a loyal listener base is much harder than it appears. According to data from leading podcast analytics platform Podscribe, only a handful of podcasts hosted by elected officials have successfully built large audiences:

As you can see, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is by far the most successful of the bunch, with over 1.4 million downloads in July, and one of his strategists told The Hill in April that they had reached over 2 million monthly downloads during the month of March. Publishing three times a week (and sometimes more often), the Texas Senator uses his show to break down the news of the day, platform friendly guests, attack the mainstream media, and promote his own political platform. In fact, Cruz has been so successful that it has created ethics and campaign finance concerns over what to do with the podcast’s increasing ad revenue. 

Aside from Cruz, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw have found success as amateur podcasters, each reaching hundreds of thousands of listeners a month. Newsom’s podcast, This is Gavin Newsom, made a splash around its launch in February by hosting a series of conversations with controversial right-wing media figures like Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk. Liberals criticized that gambit to get attention, but it ultimately paid off, as five months later, This is Gavin Newsom still maintains a solid audience for a political podcast. He’s currently ranked #68 in Apple’s competitive “News” category. 

Other elected officials dreaming of becoming the next Joe Rogan have yet to break through. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, has (perhaps predictably) not come close to matching Newsom’s success in the podcasting arena. Podscribe estimates that The Andy Beshear Podcast received around 7,300 total downloads in July, while another analytics platform put his monthly download count even lower.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, more than a few staffers have no doubt rolled their eyes when their bosses have told them they wanted to start a podcast of their own. At least six members of Congress (all Democrats) have launched new shows in 2025: With Liberty and Justice for Some by Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI), The Fly-In by Reps. Marc Veasey (D-TX) and Greg Landsman (D-OH), What Makes America Tick by Rep. Troy Carter (D-LA), Tu Caucus by Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), and Who DEM? with Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-CA). According to Podscribe’s estimates, none of these shows received more than 1,000 downloads in July. 

It’s not uncommon for these kinds of podcasts to get off the ground, only for them to flop and be taken off the air shortly after. For example, Rep. Jared Huffman had a good run with his podcast, Off the Cuff, launching in 2016 and publishing episodes through 2021, but it’s now inactive. Mike Levin, another Democrat from California, launched his own pod, Listening with Levin, in 2021 but it appears that all episodes have now been scrubbed from the internet entirely. Those two aren’t alone - there’s a growing graveyard of inactive podcasts hosted by members of Congress who gave up after months or years of recording with no results. 

These politicians’ struggles to build an audience aren’t unique. Podcasts are an interesting medium in part because while a lot of people listen to a few major podcasts, practically no one listens to most shows. According to publishing platform Buzzsprout, the median podcast receives just 27 downloads across platforms in its first seven days after release. In order for an episode to be in the top 1% of the most downloaded podcasts worldwide, it must receive a whopping 4,177 listens in its first seven days - almost nothing. 

My guess is that many of the politicians drawn to podcasting are unaware of how small most audiences actually are, or of the work required to grow one. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t experiment with the format, but they should do so with clear expectations. In podcasting, the challenge isn’t starting a show, it’s producing something people want to hear week after week, and convincing them to keep coming back. For elected officials, that may also mean recognizing that a lot of people simply don’t want to listen to them talk about policy for hours on end.

Christmas came early for Ohio Democrats

Twenty years after first being elected and following a tough defeat last fall, former U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown will run again for the U.S. Senate in Ohio next year. In November, Brown lost re-election to Republican Bernie Moreno by 3.6 percentage points - a margin of around 200,000 votes - despite Kamala Harris losing the state by 11.2 percentage points. 

Ohio is a solidly Red state, and even with Brown on the ballot, it is incredibly unlikely Democrats have any chance of retaking the Senate majority next year. Still, the party will have to start somewhere, and this race will at least offer them a fighting chance. 

Newsom fundraises for redistricting fight 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has launched a new wave of digital ads to raise money for “Governor Newsom’s Ballot Measure Committee.” That entity could be a central player in Newsom’s efforts to persuade voters to approve a measure that would allow Democrats to redraw the state’s congressional districts, countering Texas Republicans’ recent, unprecedented power grab.

More things you should read or watch this week:

• The White House gave the coveted “new media seat” in the press briefing room to MAGA YouTuber and alleged Russian asset Benny Johnson, who used the rare moment to ask a particularly hard-hitting question.

• Writing in POLITICO Magazine, former Biden and Harris staffer Rob Flaherty used the Sydney Sweeney conversation as an illustration of “why Republicans keep winning.”

• Taylor Lorenz reported that Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta has hired far-right influencer Robby Starbuck as an advisor to “root out ideological and political bias” in the company’s AI products. 

• According to CNN, Donald Trump has moved the presidential portraits of his predecessors into a “hidden stairwell,” out of view of White House tourists.

• Joe Perticone at The Bulwark wonders: What happened to Michele Bachmann? 

• Donald Trump is considering reclassifying marijuana as a lower schedule drug, a move that the Biden administration talked about but never followed through on. 

• At least one major labor union continues to flirt with MAGA, donating tens of thousands of dollars to Republican members of Congress.  

One last thing: For Democrats, word salad is back on the menu

Over the weekend, former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg went on Pod Save America and was asked about Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Specifically, he was asked if he believed the U.S. should recognize a Palestinian state, to which he replied:

“I think that that's a profound question that arouses a lot of the biggest problems that have happened with Israel's right to survival in the diplomatic scene." 

He then pivoted and reiterated the traditional Democratic party talking points supporting a hypothetical two-state solution that will magically appear someday. 

Buttigieg’s answers on the U.S.-Israeli relationship did indeed arouse criticism from across the Democratic party’s ideological divides for their word salad nature. Many in the party have a certain level of PTSD around these kinds of meandering responses that were all too common from Kamala Harris, and are reluctant to see their next standard-bearer repeat the same mistakes.

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