On Tuesday, James Talarico, a 36-year-old Presbyterian seminarian and state representative from Austin, Texas, defeated congresswoman Jasmine Crockett in what has become one of the most closely watched primary races so far this year.

While both candidates boast immense social media followings—Talarico with 1.6 million followers and Crockett with 2.6 million followers on TikTok—it wasn’t just the candidates who drove the conversation. It was the creators around them, who offer a preview of the digital fights to come throughout the midterms and, ultimately, the 2028 presidential race.

The Talarico and Crockett campaigns ran distinctly different digital strategies. Crockett has built her congressional brand on confrontation, going massively viral last year after calling out Marjorie Taylor Greene for having a “bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body” and telling Elon Musk to “fuck off.” Talarico’s digital presence reads more like a populist sermon delivered over his own social media accounts. He’s carried these preachings to unconventional platforms, like the Joe Rogan Experience, that rewarded him with countless viral clips.

But for the most part, the incendiary aspects of the digital-focused campaigns came from outside the candidates. In January, the hosts of “Las Culturistas,” a pop-culture and comedy podcast, set off a firestorm of criticism after discouraging listeners from supporting Crockett in an episode of the show. “Don’t waste your money sending to Jasmine Crockett, do not do it,” Matt Rogers, one of the hosts said at the time. The show faced immediate backlash from members of its audience and Crockett backers, forcing them to apologize.

It was the first in a series of online spats that would reach a fever pitch in February, when a Dallas-based creator named Morgan Thompson claimed that Talarico called Colin Allred, a former House representative, a “mediocre Black man.” The video shared with her nearly 200,000 TikTok followers went viral, breaking out from pro-Crockett communities online and into the mainstream press. Responding to the allegation, the Talarico campaign called the comment a “mischaracterization” of an off-the-record conversation the candidate had with Thompson in which he called Allred’s method of campaigning “mediocre,” not the man himself.

“I would never attack him [Allred] on the basis of race,” Talarico said at the time. “As a Black man in America, Congressman Allred has had to work twice as hard to get where he is. I understand how my critiques of the Congressman’s campaign could be interpreted given this country’s painful legacy of racism, and I care deeply about the impact my words have on others.”

This episode illuminated a key question among strategists going into the heat of the 2026 midterms and the next presidential race: What role should creators play in campaigns? And how do you manage them? While working with creators has become commonplace in both Republican and Democratic campaigns, the relationships are often loosely defined and difficult to control.

“There are so many factors that the campaign staff themselves have to deal with and think about,” says Kyle Tharp, who writes the Chaotic Era newsletter that focuses on digital politics. “Do I put them in the press risers at the rally, or do I give them upfront VIP access? Do I give them a couple minutes with the candidate? Am I going to be screening their questions? Or do I just let them riff and hope for the best?”

President Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection campaign relied heavily on creators and podcasters to reach young predominantly male voters. But many of those very same creators have turned against Trump over the last year. In the lead-up to the 2024 election, Trump appeared on “Flagrant,” a popular podcast hosted by comedian Andrew Schulz. But Schulz’s support for Trump quickly evolved into ire. Last summer, Schulz took issue with the administration’s failure to release files related to Justice Department investigations into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Since then, Schulz has repeatedly leveraged his platform to criticize the administration.

A creator’s primary allegiance is to their audiences and the engagement that interactions with politicians could generate. Unlike journalists who share a formal set of rules, like agreeing to off-the-record conversations, creators operate outside of those constraints and requirements. Relationships between creators and politicians can be based on trust rather than professional norms. When a creator believes that a politician is breaking that trust, there’s little to stop them from sharing a hostile post that could go viral and spin out of control. The relationship could quickly become a pain, instead of an asset.

“A lot of these creators are looking for access and being able to engage either on the record or off the record with the candidates on a more personal level, and get to know them so then they can then communicate that to their own audiences,” says Tharp. “There are some pitfalls with that.”