The camera work is nothing eye-catching, and neither is the bland zip-up hoodie that Jeff Jackson wears for this TikTok video. His subject matter this time, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023, is technical and complicated. But then Mr. Jackson starts talking, and it sounds so simple.
Staring straight at the camera, he lays out what happened in a calm tone — like Steve Burns from the beloved children’s show “Blue’s Clues,” only it’s for adults stressed about congressional clashes.
It was that clip, which attracted more than 30 million views, and dozens of similarly viral videos that helped Mr. Jackson, then a House Democrat, become North Carolina’s attorney general. He was elected to the post last fall even as President Trump took the swing state for the third time.
With his plain-spoken video explainers on the workings of government largely created during his days in Congress, Mr. Jackson has gained more than two million TikTok followers and almost a million more on Instagram, the most of any state attorney general. Now, Democrats may look to his example as a possible antidote for their problems in reaching voters, especially with midterm elections ahead. Are there lessons in Mr. Jackson’s just-the-facts presentations, which often seem to steer clear of partisan bluster?
His critics in North Carolina say he is more focused on style than substance. They also question whether Mr. Jackson can now hold the attention of a national audience in the way he did as one of many members of Congress.
In a recent interview at his office in downtown Raleigh, Mr. Jackson, 42, said he had no broad post-mortem for Democrats’ losses in 2024. He said he could guess only that “being practical and direct” in his TikTok videos about Ticketmaster prices, government shutdowns and bill negotiations made him feel trustworthy to his followers, who come from across the country.
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