With podcasts and influencers, the Liberals fight to win back lost ground with younger voters | CBC News (2024)

Ashley Burke · CBC News

· Posted: May 25, 2024 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: May 25

Trailingin the polls among the younger voters who could help decide the next general election, the federal Liberals are trying tobring up their social media gameand sell their recentbudgetto skeptical millennials and Gen Z.

After releasing a budget last monthbuilt around promises tohelp younger generations struggling with housing and the cost of living,Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went on an online mediabinge, sittingdown for interviews with popular podcastsand YouTube channels about health care(The Gritty Nurse),economics and personalfinance(The Plain Bagel) and even women's basketball(The Pick Up).

Trade Minister Mary Ng recently paid out of pocket fora drone she uses to record contentwhenshe's travellingon international trade missions.MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smithhired a millennial filmmaker to produce his videos full-time.

And Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault'sGen Z staffers have taken over his feeds. They've been leaninginto social media trends that the minister said haveincreased his reach by 300 per cent in the past month.

One poll suggests that what the Liberals have done since releasing thebudget could be starting to move the needle for them.A new survey from Abacus Data says the Liberals have narrowed the gap to five points behind the Conservatives amongyounger voters — a substantial change from the23-point gap reportedin April. It's the second recent survey showing some movement in the Liberals' direction.

Dan Arnold, who conductedpolling forthe federal Liberals'last three election campaigns, said younger generations will make up 40 per cent of eligible voters in the next election.

"Right now, the Liberals are in the worst position they've been in with millennials," said Arnold, chief strategy officer at PollaraStrategic Insights and former director of research and advertising in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

Millennials came out in record numbers to help catapult Trudeau into power in 2015. By 2019, said Arnold,"some were a little disillusioned by the party and felt maybe Trudeau didn't deliver on all of his promises,the image they had in their head of what he was going to do.

"And it's gotten worse since then,to the point where I've seen recent polling where the Liberals are polling at under 20 per centamong GenZ and millennials. That's close to half the electorate. And if you are polling at 20 per centor below with that group of voters there, itdoesn't really matter what you do with boomers — you're not going to win an election campaign."

Conservatives, meanwhile, "are leading with millennials" and are "up among millennial women by almost 20 points over the Liberals," Arnold said.Younger Canadians want change, he added, and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been reaching them on social media by talking about the things they care about most — housing and the cost of living.

Conservative strategist and president of Creative Currency Dennis Matthews said Poilievre has tappedinto what younger votersare looking for on their social feeds, whether it's shorter clips or long-form documentaries.

"You've got Pierre Poilievre who's obviously running for prime minister, but he could also be a content creator online," he told CBC's The House.

Trudeau's office last week released a video explaining its proposed capital gains tax. The videohas received 4.7 million views on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Trudeau's office doesn'ttalk about strategy publicly.ALiberal source with knowledge of the PMO's communication strategy said the public can expect to see more policy videos from Trudeau, along with lighter content — like hisMay 4 video with Canadian Star Wars actor Hayden Christensen— more appearances on podcasts and traditional mediaand more work with unpaid content creators, including influencers.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland inviteda group of five unpaid finance content creatorstoreadthe budget before it was released.Danica Nelson — a millennial herself — was one of them.

Nelson saidshe has almost 20,000 followers —mostlyBlack or Indigenous Canadians orwomen of colour who want to knowhow to manage their money better. She said she travelled to Ottawa on her own dime for an opportunity to cover the budget, meet Freeland and ask a group of ministers questions. She then broke down the budget in a series of Tik Tok and Instagram videos.

She called the Liberals' outreach to content creators a "great approach."

"I think they know that a lot of millennials and Gen Z... they don't necessarily watch traditional news anymore," Nelson said. "And they want to meet people where they are and they know people are on social media."

Boissonnaultsaid he's having fun, being edgyand trying to deployhumour on social media to demonstrate authenticity and win younger Canadians' trust.

He said Gen Z staffers are the ones calling the shots andonline engagement has goneup.

"So they see the reels, they see the trendsand they come and pitch me. And every single time I have said, 'I don't know about this, not sure how it's going to play, show me the results,'" Boissonnaulttold CBC News. "And every since time they've been right. And so I trust them."

Boissonnault'steam has picked up ontrends, such asSabrina Carpenter's popular song "Espresso" or a catchphrase made viral on TikTokby American comedian and actress Tiffany Haddish— "The parasite in me wants the candy."

Boissonnaultsaid he doesn't always get it — but it doesn't matter.

"I don't need to understand the pathway that I'm taking to go knock on doors, in thesame way that I don't need to understand the pathway that gets me to connect with a bunch of people who are Gen Z or millennials," he said."I rely on the team to help me figure that out. And so far, it's working."

Liberal MP Julie Dzerowicz, who represents the Toronto riding of Davenport,said she's going to attemptto reach millennials and Gen Z in new ways because thetraditional way isn't working.Her Davenport riding ranks 16th in the country for its percentage of younger voters.

"There's a trust issue," said Dzerowicz. "I think that more of them are feeling, 'Are you just messaging me? How do I know what the truth is between what different politicians are saying?' So that isn't something that I've had to address in a large way in previous years."

She said she is considering emulating in her social media output the fictional influencer in the popular Netflix seriesEmily in Paris, whose posts showoff the beauty of the French capital. Her posts would showcase the best her riding has to offer.

WATCH |Liberals turning to influencers to try to win back young voters:

Erskine-Smith has been reaching out toyounger votersfor a while. He regularly visits high schools to attend graduation ceremonies and is attending more than a dozenthis year. He has his own podcast and is answering questions and posting videos on just aboutevery online platform going.

"I'm not interested in chasing trends or memes," he said. "I do want to answer questions that people have with short videos, pointed videos, sharp videos."

He said he'salso navigating an issue he calls "a bit thorny." His content is still going up on TikTok, even thoughthe federal government banned the social media platform fromgovernment devices in February 2023,citing security concerns. A "young person in my office" manages the account on his personal device, he said.

A lot of Canadians get their news on TikTok, where misinformation is rampant, Erskine-Smithsaid.

"If we leave platforms entirely where so many people are, those platforms are going to be worse off," he said. "And so obviously, it's a challenge to navigate that as a parliamentarian."

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