DEEP DIVE
The wild world of Republican TikTok
In the final stretch of the 2024 election, liberal activists online were coconut-pilled, Trump was launching viral stunts at McDonald's, and every political reporter in Washington was racing to cover what they assumed would be the TikTok election. Flash forward to 2026, and most of those same reporters have moved on, treating the app as an afterthought even though tens of millions of Americans still scroll it every day.
When I was tracking digital politics in 2024, I struggled to find a single major down-ballot Republican campaign using TikTok in any serious way. Often citing national security concerns about the app's Chinese ownership, Republicans (with the notable exception of Trump and Vance) ceded the platform to Democrats, who were eager to reach younger voters and build massive followings by cranking out viral videos. Today, however, with the platform's new ownership structure in place, GOP candidates, party committees, and Trump administration officials have joined the app in greater numbers than in any previous cycle.
Midterm candidates
The movements on the candidate side are the most notable, and Republican gubernatorial candidates in particular appear to be using the app to reach younger voters, albeit with limited success. Rick Jackson, who is running for governor of Georgia, is basically just reposting his television ads on the platform. Zach Lahn, the Republican nominee for governor of Iowa, has uploaded a steady stream of explainer videos about farming mixed in with clips from his podcast appearances, while Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany mostly shares content from the campaign trail. Incumbent Gov. Joe Lombardo in Nevada and Rep. Byron Donalds in Florida have set up shop on the app as well. These candidates get an A for effort, I guess, but their content has not really broken through. Most of their accounts have fewer than 10,000 followers, and their posts have received fewer than 300,000 likes combined. (By comparison, the Democrat running for governor of Iowa has racked up three times as many on his own.)
“At this point, my basic stance on Republicans and TikTok has evolved from "don't touch it with a 10-foot pole" to "If you want to do it, go for it," says Amanda Elliott, a GOP strategist who writes the Doomscroll newsletter about digital politics on the Right. “But my advice is still the same. Don't create a TikTok account just to check a box and cross-post your ads.”
The breakouts
Beyond those TikTok rookies, Republicans have produced a few breakout stars recently. Say what you will about Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and his incredibly cringe content, but he has spent several years building a following of more than 1.1 million on the app, and his posts have received over 8 million likes. Millennial Texas Congressman Brandon Gill, seen by many Republicans as a rising star in the party, has basically become the right-wing Jasmine Crockett of the app, pushing out clips from his committee hearings to propel his two accounts to a combined two million followers. My hometown Congressman Tim Burchett isn't doing badly either, having mastered the tiny-mic interview format by showing up at local sporting events and sampling the concession stand food. The GOP's official party apparatus, the Republican National Committee, has also gotten in on the action, trying to meme its way into users' feeds by imitating the Democrats' style of shitposting.
What’s next
Maybe the most important official GOP poster on the platform aside from the President is Vice President JD Vance, who took a long break from the app after the 2024 election, only to resume posting in October 2025. As he ramps up his political operation ahead of a likely 2028 presidential run, his team has increased their posting cadence and started experimenting with new formats. Vance has posted pretty much every day this month, compared to just a handful of posts per month at the start of the year.
So where does that leave things? For one, it appears Republicans are on TikTok to stay. The party spent years treating the platform as a national security threat, and now that Trump has blessed its new owners, some candidates who once refused to download it are cutting videos in their trucks and posting from county fairs. Whether any of that will actually resonate with the younger voters they're chasing is a different question entirely.
Ramaswamy, Gill, and Burchett have proven that a certain kind of Republican can somewhat authentically build a real audience there, but many of the party's midterm candidates are still learning that reposting a 30-second TV spot does not count as a TikTok strategy, and you can see it in their engagement numbers.
“At the end of the day my advice to candidates is this: It's not about one particular app. It's about your overall narrative and your brand,” says Elliot. “Start with your story. Your why. Work backwards from there. If it makes sense to tell your story on TikTok, please figure out how to do it well. Be real. Be likable. See what happens.”
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ROUND-UP
More things you should read or watch this week
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