Why Cory Booker’s Talkathon Was a Masterclass in Social Media Savvy: “The Numbers Rival TV Networks”

In the months following the election, during which the Trump campaign successfully harnessed the power of emerging media and social platforms, some analysts have declared that Democrats have a TikTok problem. Cory Booker may have just proved them wrong.

In an over 25-hour-long speech on the Senate floor starting Monday evening at 7pm, the New Jersey Senator broke the record for the longest floor address in history, beating the the previous record-setter, Strom Thurmond, who was filibustering against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, by nearly an hour. The stunt included a massive amount of preparation, with Booker’s team preparing 1,164 pages of material for him to reference during his all-nighter. It was covered extensively by news networks and print publications, but possibly the greatest testament to Booker’s impact was a TikTok breakthrough.

Booker launched his official Senate TikTok account in conjunction with his record-breaking speech, which has since amassed over 700,000 followers. As his team rapidly clipped segments of his talk-a-thon to post on the account’s main feed, they also livestreamed the entire thing. It garnered over 350 million likes, with over 150,000 active viewers at the tail end, well after breaking Thurmond’s record. Booker’s speech was trending across the platform, with some users even making the kind of fan edits that are generally reserved for the latest celebrity heartthrob.

The senator was “pretty determined to just keep talking as long as he was capable of talking,” a Booker aide tells Vanity Fair. “We figured it was a good opportunity to debut that account, and try to start building an audience.”

In his first video, Booker said he had been hearing complaints from constituents and nation-wide “calling upon folks in Congress to do more.” Booker argued that “we all have a responsibility, I believe, to do something different, to cause as John Lewis said, ‘Good Trouble.’ And that includes me.” That TikTok now has 7.5 million views and 1.3 million likes.

While Booker has always maintained his status in Congress as an early adopter of social media for getting out the Democratic Party message, he is taking more initiative in shaping how members reach their constituents, newly serving as the chair of Strategic Communications Committee. “He’s known among his colleagues in the Senate for using social media effectively and understanding the social media ecosystem,” the aide said. The role allows him to effectively advise his Senate colleagues in generating “more engagement on social media, building audiences, and doing a better job of interacting with content creators, outside individuals, and organizations.” In taking on this leadership role, Booker has attempted to “demonstrate to his colleagues the power of social media to reach people,” the aide said, asserting that his success this week is illustrative of that opportunity to connect with voters.

Many people across the country may have come across news of Booker’s speech through the extensive coverage of media outlets, including TV networks . “But when you look at the numbers of people who consumed it on TikTok, on YouTube, or on their device,” the aide added, “the numbers rival television networks.”