ICYMI: Booker touts ‘monstrous leap’ for Senate Democrats online

In case you missed it, MS NOW highlighted how under U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), leadership of the Democratic Strategic Communications Committee, Senate Democrats' digital communication surged in 2025, leading to a 430% growth in online engagement and over 20 million new followers across Senate Democrats' social media platforms.

See for yourself:

MS NOW

Cory Booker touts a 'monstrous leap' for Senate Democrats on social media
By: Ali Vitali
January 19, 2026

Key points:

• If you've seen more Democratic senators across your social media feeds this past year, there's a good chance it's because of Sen. Cory Booker.

• The 56-year-old New Jersey lawmaker - himself one of the most-followed politicians online - took over the messaging shop for Senate Democrats in 2025. And he's been focused on expanding the reach of his colleagues by encouraging them to compete across new digital platforms.

• "There were so many stories kind of punishing Democrats after the last election that the Republicans were doing a much better job messaging in places where people are," Booker told MS NOW in a phone interview.

• But a year into the endeavor, Senate Democrats have notched over half a billion engagements and more than 20 million followers across their social media accounts, according to the Senate Democratic Strategic Communications Committee's internal tracking, shared first with MS NOW.

• Their social media accounts on X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky generated 430% more engagement than the year before. Now, according to charts like this one that Booker has shown his colleagues privately, Democrats dwarf Republicans.

• "This is not just views," Booker said. "This is a human being pushing a button to 'like' something or forwarding it to their friends or putting comments on it. So it's a substantive metric, more than just scrolling and seeing something online."

• Engagement leads to followers. The 20 million new followers mark for Senate Democrats, an 80% increase over the last year.

"My colleagues, in this last year, found ways to center the issues and fight in ways that we just weren't using before," Booker said. He pointed to New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan emotionally speaking about her son's cerebral palsy during a hearing with Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as well as Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., selling his Tesla in response to Elon Musk and DOGE.

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