An influencer is running for Senate. Is she just the first of many?

It has been a meme-heavy election so far this year, with a fire hose of content about Kamala Harris’s “Brat” summer and J.D. Vance’s undeniable weirdness. But another meeting of politics and the internet has flown a little more under the radar, in the form of a Senate race that includes, for the first time, a professional influencer. The seat opened up after Mitt Romney announced last year that he wouldn’t be seeking reelection in 2024. Though Republican John Curtis, currently a US Representative for Utah’s third district, is virtually guaranteed to win in November (The Hill predicts a more than 99 percent chance of a Curtis victory, and Utah hasn’t had a Democratic Senator since 1977), his Democratic opponent Caroline Gleich has made headlines for her career outside of politics: namely, that of a professional ski mountaineer and content creator. Gleich, 38, is known to her more than 220,000 Instagram followers for both her climate activism and her mountain-climbing adventures, which have taken her through ski slopes in Argentina to the summit of Mount Everest. Her campaign for Senate began after taking a training course by a state-level organization devoted to helping more Utah women run for office. From there, she met someone at a campaign management firm who reached out earlier this year to ask if she’d be willing to run for Romney’s seat. “Initially, when I got the email, I was a bit hesitant,” she told me in an interview. “But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the time is now, that we can’t wait for other people to step up and be the leaders that we want to see.” “Sometimes even if they’re going to lose, having a candidate to demonstrate to the opposition party that they also have to listen to their preferences [is important],” explains Juliet Carlisle, a political science scholar at the University of Utah. “The influence of a young Democratic candidate can make [Curtis] aware of what the vibe in Utah politics is among the younger generation.” [Media: https://twitter.com/carolinegleich/status/1808167899515048105/photo/1] Influencers have long played a role in politics, though typically they’re asked by established politicians to stump for them or push certain policies online to their followers. Trump, for instance, has lately been making videos with YouTuber Jake Paul, while senators are tapping influencers to help push legislation in addition to relying on traditional media. The White House enlisted influencers to promote Covid-19 vaccine information, but President Biden struggled to court content creators to support his now-aborted reelection campaign: Some who supported him in 2020 refused to do so for the 2024 cycle, while other creators have faced backlash for stumping for an administration their fans have criticized. This, in contrast with Kamala Harris, who has garnered enormous organic support online from influencers and celebrities, speaking to a divide in what kinds of candidates are able to authentically tap into the chaotic energy of the internet. It’s also not unusual for politicians to build large followings after ascending into office. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for instance, continues to use Instagram Live and other social channels to speak directly to her constituents and followers, while Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has leveraged her large online base to promote QAnon conspiracy theories and vaccine misinformation. It can often feel as though politicians are straining to be influencers themselves, referencing memes and online language in a way that can feel embarrassingly forced (see Vance’s try-hard tweets or Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated attempt to get in on the Barbie Oscars snub discourse). Yet only recently have professional content creators, or those who make their money on social media via sponsorships with brands or contributions from followers, run for office. Gleich appears to be the first full-time influencer to do so, though there have been others with popular social accounts: Conservative influencer Rep. Anna Paulina Luna was elected to Florida’s 13th district in 2022, while last year, 25-year-old lawyer and TikToker Cheyenne Hunt ran for California’s 45th district, though she ultimately lost. Both Paul and fellow YouTuber Mr. Beast have expressed their desires (whether earnestly or not) to run for president. “I’m able to connect with people to help solve problems: That’s a big part of what I do as a content creator every day to bring value to people’s lives, and that’s similar to what I hope to achieve in the US Senate,” says Gleich. “When I approach brands and do sales pitches, I want to center their needs first. And this is really about centering the voices of Utahns.” Carlisle references the 1990 political science text Actors, Athletes, and Astronauts: Political Amateurs in the United States Congress as a way of explaining how name recognition can assist the already famous in pivoting to political office. Arnold Schwarzenegger was able to translate his Hollywood stardom into the governorship of California, after all, although in the crowded field of Instagram influencers, that leap is much more difficult. “Name recognition doesn’t necessarily translate into local name recognition,” she explains, warning that just because an influencer has a global following doesn’t guarantee them votes in the areas where they’re running. On Reddit, where talk of influencers often tends toward the snarky, some have accused Gleich of using the election to boost her career on social media. “The cynical part of me thinks this is just one big branding move — one that will just earn her more money and sponsorships once she inevitably loses in the election,” wrote one person. Others have defended her candidacy: “We need more young liberals with different backgrounds running for office in Utah, and she seems to be the only one willing to take on the huge financial and public image burden of doing so,” wrote another. Campaign finance is a uniquely thorny issue for influencers. The Federal Election Commission currently deems any sponsored brand post that includes a candidate and runs within 90 days of an election to be subject to its rules on “coordinated communication.” It would therefore be considered an “in-kind contribution” and required to be listed in a candidate’s campaign finance reports. “These companies that are sponsoring [an influencer] then step into a thicket of campaign finance laws,” says Carlisle. Gleich is pushing back on these rules, recently filing a request to sidestep the requirements. She says that profits from her content creation career are down 90 percent this year due to the campaign, which has been “devastating” financially. “When I send [brands] the rules, it’s a dealbreaker. It’s very complicated on the back end for advertisers,” she says. Though she’s been able to stay afloat after “two really good years of work,” she stresses that it’s extraordinarily difficult to run for office “if you’re not retired or independently wealthy.” “Some of the outdated campaign laws have made it really challenging to navigate. And I think this is a big part of the reason why we don’t see more 38-year-olds running for office.” Gleich hopes that the changes she’s pushing for will encourage more content creators and young people to get involved in politics. “I absolutely do think that America would be better served if we had more content creators in office,” she says. “I think that we will see in the next decade a lot more people from different backgrounds doing this.” One way influencers can encourage political activism at a smaller scale is to make it seem cool to young people. When she first started posting about politics, she says, “We really wanted to make voter registration and the public hearings we were doing look really fun and cool so that people would want to get involved.” While existing politicians are leveraging the energy online to do the campaigning for them, it’ll be interesting to see whether that translates when digital natives are seeking out elected roles in politics. After all, as a professional content creator, Gleich is already used to the kinds of harassment levied against politicians: sexist attacks, trolls, comments on their self-presentation. In a country that demands a carefully curated authenticity from its influencers and politicians, perhaps there’s value in being both. Only time will tell whether more follow suit.