Posted on Dec 11, 2020 Updated on Dec 11, 2020, 8:32 am CST
One of the Democrats in the Georgia Senate runoff race is taking over political TikTok.
Jon Ossoff is up against Sen. David Purdue (R-Ga.) in the state’s runoff, as neither candidate achieved 50% of the vote in November. Like other Democrat officeholders, Ossoff uses TikTok to inspire young voters. And he already has 1.9 million likes on the app.
The content ranges from dueting young content creators to clips from his campaign videos.
Another video compiles Ossoff’s criticisms of Perdue captioned: “has anyone seen David Perdue?”
“If David Perdue doesn’t want to answer questions in public about his record and debate his opponent, that’s fine, he just shouldn’t run for re-election to the U.S. Senate,” Ossoff says in one of the clips.
And he hopped on popular TikTok trends like “you have to stop” and “extremely rare aesthetic.”
“You have to stop acting like the Senate isn’t at stake in these two Georgia runoff. The future of our country and the plant are at stake, COVID relief, health care, climate change,” Ossoff says.
Ossoff is not the first to use TikTok to his campaign’s advantage. In Massachusetts’ Democratic primaries, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) galvanized young voters online in what became the “Markeyverse,” an online community tweeting Markey-themed memes and TikToks.
One viral TikTok roasted his opponent, Joe Kennedy, for his wealth.
Much of the Markeyverse consisted of first-time voters. It’s likely Ossoff is trying to get the same youth momentum.
The Ossoff campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Libby Cohen is a third-year University of Texas student originally from New Jersey. She has written for ORANGE Magazine, the Daily Texan, and most recently interned for 1010 WINS in NYC. She's now back in Austin writing for the Texas Standard and the Daily Dot.
