What's Resonating: Friday, October 31st
SNAP cuts, the shutdown and getting spooky – Plus: A look at YouTube for the Left
We’re back with another edition of What’s Resonating – a daily newsletter from the Resonate team that delivers a data-driven snapshot of the stories, trends, and messages shaping online culture and politics.
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Now, let’s dive in.
What’s Resonating
SNAP cuts
Shutdown discussion
Halloween costumes and political hooks
Today’s Analysis: Bright spots on YouTube for the Left
Today’s Takeaway: Tomorrow, SNAP benefits will expire for millions of American families at the same time as insurance premium prices skyrocket on health care exchanges. Left-leaning pages should double down on this high-engagement topic: talking about the shutdown by calling out the Trump administration for using access to food as a political weapon. Trump and Republicans in Congress would rather let kids go hungry than prevent health care premiums from skyrocketing for millions of Americans.
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Yesterday on Social Media
🟦 Left-leaning accounts
NowThis Impact posted a clip of Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow making it clear that there are years of funding for SNAP available, but the Trump administration is choosing to let families go hungry and “using food as a political weapon.” (1.7 million views across two posts)
Courier also amplified the clip of McMorrow and news of 25 states suing Trump for withholding food aid from millions of Americans. (650,000 views across two posts)
The Daily Show highlighted expiring SNAP benefits and contrasted them with how the Trump administration finds ways to fund the things they care about (e.g., the military). (735,000 views)
Aaron Parnas reported that billions of dollars are set aside for SNAP, but Trump will not utilize them. (747,000 views across two posts)
NowThis Impact shared a clip of an international student confronting JD Vance during a Q&A session about how they sold immigrants a dream of America, but then decided there were too many immigrants. (2.5 million views across two posts)
Kamala Harris shared a video filling out her ballot and encouraging others to vote yes on Prop 50. (2.4 million views across two posts)
Brian Allen posted about the Senate voting to strip Trump of his ability to impose tariffs, especially noting that Trump’s grip on his own party is “cracking in real time” after multiple Republicans voted yes. (113,000 likes, 12x average likes)
NowThis Impact highlighted the “waste, fraud, and abuse” of Kash Patel using government planes for frequent personal travel. (1.9 million views and 41,000 likes on Instagram)
Zohran Mamdani posted a collaboration with the popular internet show Track Star. (1.9 million views)
🟥 Right-leaning accounts
The Trump administration leaned into Halloween:
Donald Trump shared a video from the White House Halloween celebration (6.3 million views) as well as the Team Trump account. (5.2 million views)
The White House account posted a spooky, edited image of the Capitol building, adding “GHOSTED: Democrats disappear on the American people when they need them the most.” (1.2 million views)
The White House shared a shutdown-themed video calling Trump a “Dembuster” to the theme song of Ghostbusters. (923,000 views)
The White House also shared an edited version of Trump handing out candy to include Jeffries and Schumer in sombreros. (500,000 views)
Resonate’s Take: We might hate to see it, but the Trump social media team followed our advice for electeds engaging with Halloween to a tee. Not only did they spotlight Trump with trick-or-treaters, but they also used this footage and the holiday as a hook to talk about the shutdown and place blame on Democrats.
Right-leaning pages continue to zero in on Mamdani ahead of next week’s NYC mayoral election:
The NY Post shared a 2023 video of Mamdani shouting about defunding “Israeli settler violence.” (1.1 million views)
DC Draino responded to Matt Bernstein showing off his “I voted” sticker, adding “Go visit a muslim country with all that makeup on and let me know how it goes for ya.” (97,000 likes, 8x average engagements)
Rand Paul shared a chart showing the increase in federal spending on SNAP, adding that we need to ask ourselves why so many Americans are on SNAP. (64,000 likes, 8x average engagements)
Candace Owens had the most-viewed right-leaning YouTube video yesterday with a podcast episode about the Egyptian military’s presence in Provo, Utah the day before Charlie Kirk’s killing. (1.3 million views)
The NY Post shared a video of a Baltimore cop who tried to hit a pedestrian with his patrol vehicle. (5.1 million views, most-liked right-leaning post)
Fox News reported on Trump cutting Chinese tariffs after a meeting with President Xi. (167,000 likes)
James Woods celebrated RFK Jr.’s push to end animal testing in all U.S. drug trials. (79,000 likes, 3x average engagements)
🟨 Neutral (Political) accounts
Dylan Page posted a video about increasing violence against civilians in Sudan after a key city in the country’s civil war fell after a lengthy siege. (8.4 million views, fourth-most-liked tracked post)
The Independent posted a clip of Mike Waltz getting interrupted at the UN and called out for his involvement in the leaked Signal chat. (4.6 million views, 25x average likes)
CNN shared a clip from the Abby Zwerner trial where Zwerner is seen just after she was shot by a six-year-old in her classroom (10 million views, 15x average likes) and a clip of Zwerner testifying that she thought she had died. (3.9 million views, 8x average likes)
The Wall Street Journal amplified a quote from Billie Eilish where she asked a room full of wealthy people why some are billionaires, encouraging them to “give your money away, shorties.” (2.8 million views, 14x average likes)
BBC News had the fourth-most-viewed tracked YouTube video yesterday on Prince Andrew losing his title after continued news of his connection to Epstein. (1.1 million views)
Dylan Page reported on the U.S. resuming nuclear weapons testing. (6.1 million views)
🟨 Neutral (Cultural) accounts
The Diary of a CEO promoted the newest episode featuring Kamala Harris. (7 million views, 47x average engagements)
Creators and celebrities continued to share their Halloween costumes.
Creator Golloria spoke out about the current conflicts in Sudan. (744,000 views, 6x average engagements)
Creators continued to speak out on the impending loss of food assistance:
Keith Lee spoke about his time on food stamps and encouraged brands to comment to help him give away food. (686,000 views)
Creator Isabel Klee connected the SNAP cuts and ICE raids to her online focus of helping animals, arguing that “animal welfare is political.” (511,000 views)
Today’s Analysis: Bright spots on YouTube for the Left
YouTube is one of the toughest platforms to crack as a digital practitioner. It takes a long time to successfully grow a YouTube channel, and the nuances of what performs well on the platform are different than TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook. But it’s also enormously powerful—YouTube is the most universally used social media platform among U.S. adults, and power users of the platform watch hours a day of YouTube content.
There are a number of left-leaning voices who are doing YouTube well. In our top pages dashboard, 7 of the top 10 YouTube accounts by total views in October are left-leaning pages, including heavy-hitting creators like MeidasTouch, Brian Tyler Cohen, Occupy Democrats, and Keith Edwards. But it’s not just creators and media personalities—it may sound surprising, but we’ve also seen significant investments in YouTube from elected Democrats, and it’s starting to pay off.
Some electeds are doing long-form YouTube well, like Senator Adam Schiff, whose team has invested a ton of time and effort into developing a presence on the platform. They do the basics very well: a consistent format (5-10 minute direct-to-camera monologues on important topics), high-quality video, and attention-grabbing thumbnails. As a result, Senator Schiff now has 500,000 followers on the platform and has generated nearly 5 million views on his account in the month of October.
But you don’t need to develop a home studio or focus on building a long-form brand to establish a presence on YouTube, because there’s also YouTube Shorts. Shorts are now arguably a bigger part of YouTube than long-form video, and can accommodate the exact same content formats that accounts put on TikTok, Instagram or Facebook Reels, with minimal platform-specific tailoring.
Success on YouTube Shorts can take a variety of forms, but like many algorithm-driven feeds, it’s partly a numbers game—just getting content on the board counts. Take Representative Pramila Jayapal’s account, which has been posting a steady diet of clips as Shorts and seeing huge success. Despite having just 43,000 subscribers on the platform, Jayapal has had multiple clips this month highlighting ICE kidnappings get hundreds of thousands of views, and her top post ever back in July grilling a Trump appointee received 18 million views.
Success here doesn’t require finding a hyper-specific format or moonlighting as a creator—it’s about putting out a consistent volume of powerful, emotional content.
Some other successes we’ve seen on YouTube shorts this month:
Senator Whitehouse shared a clip from the Senate floor about Pam Bondi’s shambolic hearing (October 10, 2.5 million views, over 20x the account average)
Senator Warner posted a direct-to-camera video filmed from the car about Trump threatening New Yorkers and threatening to take a World Cup game away from Boston (October 15, 2.3 million views, most-viewed video ever on his account)
Representative Lieu shared a press clip criticizing Trump and Hegseth’s convening of the generals (4.1 million views, 175,000 likes, second-most viewed post ever on his account)
Senator Warren shared a direct-to-camera video explaining the Paramount-Skydance merger, Trump’s corruption, and the effects on consumers (295,000 views)
Bottom line: There’s a wide range of topics, formats, and styles in the clips we highlighted—there’s no one secret trick to succeeding on YouTube. But a variety of left-leaning pages are seeing success on the platform, and posting Shorts at a consistent clip is an easy way to establish a presence no matter your follower count.
Email users: Click through for the full chart.
The data on YouTube Shorts realy shows how electeds don't need to reinvent the wheel when they already have strong comittee moments or floor speeches. Jayapal's success with just repurposing clips makes the case that volume matters more than production value, and when you compare someone like Schiff building a whole studio operation versus someone like Warner filming from his car, both are finding their audiences. The challenge is going to be sustaining that ouput when the news cycle shifts away from Trump's chaos.