'That's the guy from TikTok!' Kentucky Democrats use app to make inroads with young voters

Though he sometimes plays acoustic guitar in a cover band in Louisville's Highlands neighborhood, Democratic state Senate Minority Leader Morgan McGarvey in no way resembles someone who could even aspire to the status of rock star.

Yet when he entered the downtown Chipotle last month, the young workers behind the counter registered their recognition of an improbable social media celebrity.

"I'm getting in line and all of a sudden they go 'Oh my gosh, that's the guy from TikTok!'" McGarvey recounted.

A little more than a month since the Kentucky Senate Democratic caucus posted the first of 15 videos on its TikTok social media app account, McGarvey says he keeps getting recognized by strangers outside of the state's political realm who have seen him lip-syncing or, yes, dancing in them.

"We're doing something new, we're reaching out to people in a new way, and the response has been better than I ever imagined," McGarvey said.

Youth voting turnout surged nationally in the 2020 election to 53%, the large majority of which voted Democrat.

Democrats, both locally and nationally, are trying to build on that momentum and engage with this potent voting block — many of which are glued to their phones, where TikTok thrives.

The caucus posted its first TikTok video on June 30 — just nine seconds long and featuring McGarvey walking to a meeting, saying nothing. It has been viewed nearly 1 million times on the app, received 147,000 likes, 1,334 comments and been shared 1,854 times.

The videos featuring McGarvey and other Democratic senators have collectively received 541,000 likes and 3.5 million views — a level of engagement far surpassing anything else by political groups in Kentucky on other social media platforms.

The Senate Democrats' TikTok account now has more than 21,300 followers — far surpassing the number of followers that either party's House and Senate caucus has for their established Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.

And who's responsible for all of this? The Democratic caucus' 21-year-old summer intern.

'We've got to try new things'

While the Democratic caucus is thriving in social media engagement, what they currently lack are actual elected legislators, as they have been relegated to a tiny minority in both chambers with the steady rightward shift of the electorate — outnumbered by Republicans 30-8 in the Senate and 75-25 in the House.

"We are in the minority, and we've got to try new things to reach different audiences and get our message across," McGarvey said.

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McGarvey, 41, has been a relative youngster in Frankfort since first being elected to the Senate nine years ago, having Facebook and Twitter accounts long before running for office.

But while the average age of Facebook and Twitter users has increased over the past decade, young people now tend to gravitate toward TikTok, whose more than 700 million global users — now far surpassing Twitter — are heavily populated by teenagers and people in their early 20s.

McGarvey said he was already considered launching a TikTok account to build up the party's strength with the next generation of voters, when a resume for a summer intern caught his eye.

Piper Burke, who grew up in Louisville and will soon begin her senior year at Connecticut College, did not have any political experience, but did tout her internship with a private company the previous summer, where she ramped up its TikTok account.

McGarvey hired her and handed over the keys to the caucus' TikTok account, tasking her with coming up with a strategy and specific videos.

"I just trusted her that it was going to work, McGarvey said. "I didn't really understand whether it would or why it would, but the next thing you know, 900,000 people have watched it, 141,000 people have liked it. So, I think she was onto something."

'Into the thick of it'

That nine-second video clip of McGarvey fit into the mold of much of TikTok's viral content, using a sound clip and meme that was trending across the app at the time — in this case, a song from a relatively obscure 2004 children's cartoon show and an uncomfortable situation.

As "into the thick of it" is sung three times, McGarvey walks down a hallway in the Capitol annex in Frankfort and stops at the door of the Senate Republican leadership office, as displayed text reads: "When you are a Democratic State Senator in Kentucky, republicans have a super majority and you are going to a meeting."

In front of the door, he looks at the camera and grimaces, as the lyric turns to "ugh."

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And that's it.

While perhaps inexplicable for those not familiar with how TikTok works, it struck a chord with young users and pushed the post onto the "For You" page of the app, where most users find new content beyond accounts they already follow.

"I was really surprised by how well the first one did, especially," Burke told The Courier Journal. "I was not expecting it at all."

With the success of the first post, Burke received buy-in from other Democratic senators to make appearances and lip-synch to songs and audio in the videos, such as Sen. Gerald Neal, 74, of Louisville and Sen. Reginald Thomas, 68, of Lexington.

Neal said he's been happy to follow Burke's directions and participate in videos, noting he's received a lot of positive feedback from younger people he knows — even if he's still not sure why they've become so popular.

"Do you get it? Tell me if you do," Neal said with a laugh. "I don't know. It's all new to me."

Burke said she comes up with the concepts of her videos by researching what sounds or memes are trending on the "For You" pages of her friends and family members, then fits them into the messaging Democrats want to get across, which has become a more collaborative process over the summer.

"An inside joke is a really good way of describing TikTok, because you kind of have to understand the sounds that are really popular," Burke said. "Certain sounds will be used with all different kinds of videos, but if you understand the sound, then you can kind of understand the joke behind the video."

'No one is laughing anymore'

While the most common theme of the Democrats' TikTok videos has been self-deprecation at their tiny status among the Republican supermajority and inability to get their own bills through for a vote, McGarvey said "we're also using it to get across some of our message and our values, as well."

In one video that has been viewed 424,000 times and received 49,000 likes, Thomas lip-synchs a line from a Drake song in frustration, as the displayed texts reads: "THE MINIMUM WAGE IN KENTUCKY HAS BEEN $7.25 SINCE 2009!!!"

"Twitter has turned into either who can be the snarkiest or it's always about some type of messaging," McGarvey said. "And that's important, but I think TikTok is more about having some fun and also talking about who we are what we believe in."

Noting that "some wizard political prognosticators" were laughing about the caucus entering the TikTok arena, he said people in Frankfort are now starting to get it and "no one is laughing anymore."

"We're reaching hundreds of thousands of more people on TikTok than we are in any of our other social media platforms," McGarvey said. "So, just because you don't understand why a particular sound is trending or why we're using a particular song doesn't mean that it's not effective in reaching the people we're trying to reach."

Republican Party of Kentucky spokesman Mike Lonergan told The Courier Journal last week he wasn't aware of any plans for the party to create a TikTok account, but on Saturday the House Republican caucus posted their first TikTok video.

The video, featuring a finger snapping at different areas of the Capitol Building in Frankfort, had picked up less than 600 views and nine likes as of Wednesday, along with 10 followers.

House Republican caucus spokeswoman Laura Lee Goins said they want to ensure their TikTok account is used "in the same positive, constructive manner" as their other social media platforms, and they want to "engage Kentuckians, and to make the Kentucky General Assembly more accessible to the people it serves."

The 'secret sauce' of TikTok

While few organized political groups or parties have been viral sensations on TikTok when compared to other social media platforms, political and social activism among young people has been able to break through across the globe. 

Perry Park, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism at Michigan State University, recently coauthored a study of climate change activism on TikTok, finding that while the app is "more ambiguous and entertainment-focused than discourse on platforms like Twitter," young users have been able to create widespread content highlighting the issue with a unique mix of humor and earnestness.

With TikTok's rapid growth among a younger demographic, Perry expects formal political organizations to increasingly attempt what the Kentucky Senate Democrats were able to pull off — just as groups did when the Facebook and Twitter platforms took off.

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"I think it's a safe bet that you will see increasing numbers of political organizations — just like other nonprofit organizations and for-profit organizations — recognizing that TikTok for now is a good place to reach a younger demographic and try to figure out the secret sauce to successfully communicating there," Perry said.

Though Democrats may not see any short-term electoral gains from their TikTok splash, McGarvey said "if nothing else, it's hopefully engaging new people with state government. And that's still a good thing."

Burke will head back to college in Connecticut at the end of August, though Micah Goff, the spokesman for the Senate Democratic caucus, said they will "definitely be pinging her for ideas" while she is away.

Reach reporter Joe Sonka at jsonka@courierjournal.com and follow him on Twitter at @joesonka. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today at the top of this page.