When Lydia Shaffer, the social media influencer who goes by “Conservative Barbie,” walked out of President Trump’s midterm convention on Wednesday night, she knew she had a problem.
She was here in Dallas to spread the message of the Republican Party to the American people. But the dozens of speeches during the first day of the convention described a booming country, and the president, in his keynote address, called the affordability crisis gripping the nation “fake.”
The reality for the hundreds of thousands of people who followed Ms. Shaffer online was different, and she sensed that such a sunny portrait would not be well received.
“Honestly, people are still hurting right now,” said Ms. Shaffer, whose online moniker has been “conservativebarbie2.0” since her first account was banned from TikTok during the pandemic for what she described as anti-conservative bias.
“Normally,” she said, holding a pink selfie stick, “conservatives are really good at naming a problem.”
More than 100 influencers were invited to the midterm convention by members of the Republican National Committee, a committee spokeswoman said. They were given some of the best seats in the arena and special “creator” credentials that granted them access to a list of Republican Party leaders eager to sit for interviews.
They recorded content from special a platform directly across from the stage where the president spoke. They partied after hours at an event hosted by TikTok, where they snacked on miniature cheesecakes and an assortment of cake balls.
“We got great treatment in 2024,” said Xaviaer DuRousseau, who boasts well over a million followers across Instagram and TikTok, referring to the Republican National Convention two years ago. “But this is even better.”
The difficult task facing these dozens of conservative influencers was figuring out how to boost the Republican Party, when the image of prosperity projected from the stage was different from the reality of surging costs.
Bogdan Laurentiu, a conservative content creator with more than 700,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram, said he chose to stay focused on the issue he knew resonated with his audience: immigration.
“I don’t talk about prices,” he said just outside the platform reserved for influencers, which was called the “creator deck.” “There are a few topics I don’t talk about.”
Ms. Shaffer opted for a similar approach. She uploaded a collection of photos that included selfies with other influencers, her “creator lounge” credentials and her purse next to her selfie stick. She also posted a video honoring Charlie Kirk, the conservative online giant who was assassinated exactly one year ago.
She said she hoped the content would capture the excitement she felt being in a room of like-minded people. Maybe that energy, in the absence of specific policies, would help bring together her party, which she worried was increasingly divided, she said.
Conservatives with social-media savvy have been key to the Republican Party’s success over the last decade, helping the G.O.P. build a winning coalition in part by drawing in younger voters.
With the midterm elections less than two months away, the convention was advertised as an effort to drum up support for Republican candidates running in tough races. To keep control of the House and the Senate, the Republican Party will likely have to win back support from young voters, who polls show are increasingly disenchanted with the party.
But the task of boosting the right wing’s online brand has become more difficult as Mr. Trump’s popularity has lagged in polls and the war in Iran, among other issues, has divided some of the G.O.P.’s biggest online names.
That has also complicated the relationship between the influencer class and Republican leaders, especially Mr. Trump, whose access gives them the content that has boosted their careers. Influencers on both sides of the aisle have been paid to endorse candidates, but it is often difficult to discern who or how much because there are no federal regulations requiring disclosure of payments for political support on social media.
The online conservative movement has also yet to fill a void left by the killing of Mr. Kirk, the conservative campus organizer who co-founded Turning Point USA and proved uniquely able to mobilize young Republicans.
The second day of the convention, Thursday, was the anniversary of Mr. Kirk’s killing. Some of Turning Point’s new leaders skipped the convention and instead streamed a live broadcast from Arizona to mark the day.
Andrew Kolvet, a longtime confidant of Mr. Kirk and one of the regular hosts of his talk show since his death, said on X that he had decided to “remember Charlie here, inside his studio and on the campus that he built.” He encouraged “our influencers and our contributors to come here and be a part of remembering Charlie.” He said he did not see the overlapping events as a “major slight.”
A Times-Siena poll in May found that Mr. Trump’s disapproval rating was 76 percent among young voters, a 6 percentage point jump from January and a 10 percentage point increase from about a year prior. More than half of young voters said Trump’s policies have hurt them personally in May, compared to 45 percent in September of the year prior.
Mr. DuRousseau, who was stopped constantly inside the convention arena by gawking fans, said he came hoping to share clips of “anything that is dragging Abdul El-Sayed,” the Democrat running for Senate in Michigan. That proved fruitful, as Dr. El-Sayed and other similarly progressive candidates were popular topics among speakers.
Mr. DuRousseau said he was also looking for footage of Vice President JD Vance because “it’s never too early” to promote the vice president’s possible presidential run in 2028.
Many of the content creators in attendance shared pictures and videos praising the energy at the convention and depicting the arena, which had a sizable crowd but also empty seats, as full. Benny Johnson, a right-wing podcaster, hosted a livestream of Mr. Trump’s speech and shared clips of it on X, racking up thousands of retweets and likes.
An influencer who posts on X under the account name Gunther Eagleman shared an A.I. video of Mr. Trump handing out $5,000 checks after he floated the idea of giving a “Trump Dividend” to every adult American if Republicans keep control of Congress, an idea that would cost more than $1.3 trillion and has been described by some Republicans and Democrats as socialism, a budget-busting gimmick and an attempt to buy votes.
Mr. DuRousseau’s first video from the convention defended the legality of the plan.
Other right-wing influencers were critical on other fronts. Laura Loomer, the far-right activist who is close to Mr. Trump, took to X to condemn those in the party who spoke at the convention for not amplifying anti-Muslim sentiment.
Ms. Shaffer was optimistic that the two-day event would help unify her party, which she said she sees as increasingly divided.
“It’s happening,” she said, sticking out her hand and cupping her palm, as if to take the temperature of the hallway outside the creator deck.
An influencer who amassed a following for his conservative cowboy bona fides walked by. A man wearing a yarmulke decorated with Mr. Kirk’s face stopped for interviews.
“I can just feel it,” she said.
Ken Bensinger and Caroline Soler contributed reporting.
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