Your favorite influencer could be quietly taking paychecks from politicians in exchange for supportive messages and campaign endorsements on social media.
Recent revelations about the working relationships between government officials, political campaigns and content creators has revealed a trend emerging in and around Washington, deployed by lobbyists and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle: Influencers are getting hired by political campaigns and government agencies, often in ways that are difficult to see, to boost officials’ reputations, attack political rivals and push party propaganda on their platforms.
Only a handful of states regulate disclosure of such relationships and their finances.
These influencer operations have been deployed by midterm campaigns and special interest groups all over the country this year. The New York Times reports that three Democrats running for governor in California spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on influencer contracts in the lead-up to their primary in June. One of the candidates, billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer, spent at least $100,000 on a single influencer from Texas, Carlos Eduardo Espina, who broadcast his support for Steyer’s campaign to 14.5 million followers on TikTok. Steyer did not advance in the race.
Much of this activity can’t be easily discerned by taxpayers and voters. The Federal Elections Commission requires candidates and campaigns to disclose their expenditures, but it does not regulate social media influencers. That means those hired by campaigns to promote their candidates wouldn’t typically have to disclose they’re being paid for their promotion.
Tapping influencers for campaign work is not a new phenomenon. President Donald Trump has arguably had the most success with the practice, spending millions on influencers and consultants for his second run, on top of investing in the legion of prominent right-wing podcasters and pundits he helped build in his first term.
But the rest of Washington appears to have caught on to the tactic this year, alongside a host of candidates and dark money enterprises, all seeking to influence midterm elections and bolster political support.
It’s easy to see why these operations are gaining popularity — hiring influencers is an incredibly affordable alternative to traditional campaign advertising, and creators can be deployed quickly at any scale to give a candidate or agenda item a nearly instantaneous boost.
More minor campaigns can hire an army of small-time influencers and gig workers with lower follower counts for pennies on the dollar. In April an influencer told MS NOW that she was paid $400 for 30 social media posts in support of Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens during her primary bid for Michigan’s Senate seat. For creators with larger audiences, the money can stack up fast; the Times spoke to a lifestyle influencer with almost 10 million followers on TikTok who was paid $25,000 for a single post in support of former Democratic Rep. Katie Porter in her failed gubernatorial bid in California.
Payments like that represent only a small fraction of the potential money and influence changing hands during these operations. There are no federal disclosure regulations that extend to influencers’ political messaging on social media, and only a few states have such rules in place — meaning many of these business relationships between politicians and influencers can operate with little public oversight. Most of these influencers aren’t legally obligated to disclose their fees to the federal government, release details about their assignments to their audiences, or even acknowledge that they’re being paid to support a political campaign. The money can typically be tracked via FEC filings by political candidates and campaigns, which are required to disclose their political spending.
It’s a big regulatory gray area, one that has already proved to be a safe haven for dark money interests and lobbying ventures to funnel money and influence of their own into elections. In March, MS NOW spoke to an influencer who was offered $1,500 from a nebulous political organization in exchange for a negative social media post about Kat Abughazaleh, an Illinois progressive running in a contentious House primary already flooded with millions in campaign donations from outside special interest groups, some linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The influencer declined the offer, but other creators appeared to have accepted — the language in their social media posts matched up with a brief of talking points sent alongside the offer. Abughazaleh narrowly lost her primary.
Recent news reports confirm that high-profile politicians — including Trump administration officials — are taking full advantage of these operations.
The Washington Post reported Sunday that the Pentagon had secretly hired several right-wing military veterans, each with their own massive social media audience, to boost Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s views and criticize Trump’s detractors. The influencers — who include retired Air Force colonel Rob Maness, retired Army colonel Kurt Schlichter and retired Army colonel Thomas Anderson, who goes by Cynical Publius on social media — boast more than 1 million followers between them on X. The Post reports that they were assigned civilian roles, but the nature of their contracts and salaries remain unclear.
The Pentagon had not previously disclosed the hires, and the influencers never revealed the arrangements with their followers, until the Post published its report. In an X post Sunday evening, Anderson said the Defense Department had invited him to serve on a “special task force” to make recommendations “on how to improve the warfighting focus of America’s military senior service colleges.” He claimed he wasn’t compensated by the government “for anything I write or have ever written on X or in any magazine or other source. Those who claim otherwise defame me.”
The Post story comes about a week after another prominent right-wing influencer and Trump loyalist was revealed to be a recent Defense Department hire. Jennica Pounds, known as Data Republican on X, has long served as a megaphone for Trump’s “deep state” claims before her audience of nearly 1 million. The revelation that Pounds — known to accuse others of being a “fed” without evidence — was herself a federal employee came amid a messy public social media spat with a State Department under secretary, whom Pounds accused of trying to “entrap” her by leaking her classified documents.
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