Content creators now shape more than daily routines like coffee choices or beauty habits.

Roughly one in four Americans, or 26 percent, report that influencer material has changed their voting decisions, based on a Morning Consult poll of about 2,000 US adults from September that Business Insider commissioned.

Creator material represents an underestimated path for political campaigns, noted Nicole Dunger, founding partner at People First, a firm that assists candidates and groups with creator outreach. It has become a genuine and significant factor in the current landscape.

Following the podcast focus of 2024, the 2026 cycle appears set to center on influencers. Instagram and TikTok creators now rank alongside traditional outlets and figures like Joe Rogan as key information sources for voters.

Names such as Jake Paul and Hasan Piker have taken prominent roles in political conversations this year.

Paul recently appeared with President Donald Trump at an Ohio midterm event and shared TikTok videos from an Air Force One trip. Piker has supported progressive candidates including Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed while drawing criticism from Fox News voices.

With online visibility now vital in politics, influencers help candidates cut through competing messages.

More than half of US adults, or 56 percent, told Morning Consult that creator posts had influenced their opinions on political or social topics to some extent. The share rose among Gen Z participants, with nearly three in four saying influencer material had shifted their views.

Campaigns face the task of finding suitable creators, especially those who do not often cover politics.

A campaign needs its core base of supporters along with a wider group of voices who avoid regular political talk, explained Parker Butler, managing partner at Luminary Strategies, which handles social efforts for Democratic candidates such as James Talarico. Different sets of creators serve distinct goals.

Butler noted that outreach now targets creators with audiences smaller than those of Piker, who has roughly 3 million Twitch followers, or Paul, who counts about 21 million YouTube subscribers.

The aim is to move beyond simply counting followers and instead locate influencers active in specific niches that match campaign targets.

Political talk shifts from television to online video platforms

Political conversations increasingly occur on digital spaces such as podcasts, YouTube clips, and Twitch streams.

YouTube ranked as the leading source for political and election news among US adults in September, slightly ahead of television, print, and X, per a Syracuse University survey.

About one in five Democrats and Republicans said podcast appearances could increase their likelihood of supporting a candidate, according to a Sounds Profitable survey of likely midterm voters conducted from July through August. A smaller portion of independents, 11 percent, reported the same effect.

Although campaigns recognize the move toward digital attention, most ad spending remains on television.

Some of this stems from familiarity with television buys. Teams also grapple with the difficulty of predicting and tracking influencer results, given the personalized and algorithm-driven nature of social feeds.

Measurement can prove difficult, yet outcomes become clear over time, Dunger said. The process mirrors door-to-door canvassing, which has long delivered results without precise tracking data.