The Left is Overlooking a Powerful Tool in the Battle for Online Attention

Those TV clips that keep showing up on your FYP aren’t there by accident — so how can Democrats join the fray?

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Hey y’all, I’m Max Levy, longtime FWIW reader, and I’ll be your guest author today! I came up in politics through online fundraising, ran Stacey Abrams’ record-setting digital fundraising program in 2022, and then led Democracy Forward’s digital operation and its groundbreaking exposure of Project 2025 last year. Now, I’m an independent consultant helping candidates, leaders, and organizations talk like real people and use cutting-edge tools to reach people across the country.

Today, we’ll be talking about a tool that for-profit marketers have figured out, but Democrats have been slow to adopt to break through in today’s attention economy — clipping!

More on that below, but first…

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Digital ad spending, by the numbers:

FWIW, U.S. political advertisers spent about $14.4 million on Facebook and Instagram ads last week. Here were the top ten spenders nationwide:

While Gavin Newsom and Jon Ossoff continue to remain among the top investors in Meta ads, Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner appears on this list for the first time. Last week, he outspent his primary opponent, DSCC-backed Janet Mills, by more than double ($308K to her $152K).

Meanwhile, political advertisers spent just over $8.6 million on Google and YouTube ads last week. These were the top ten spenders nationwide:

In a rare turn of events, Democrats dominated this list last week, with Gov. Newsom’s pro-Prop 50 messaging representing nearly half of the total top 10 spending.

As if we needed any more proof of government agencies being politicized by this administration, the DHS ran a series of ads featuring Kristi Noem threatening “illegal aliens” while touting “President Trump’s strong leadership.”

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On X (formerly Twitter), political advertisers in the U.S. have spent around $8.9 million on ads in 2025. According to X’s political ad disclosure, here are the top spenders year to date:

…and lastly, on Snapchat, political advertisers in the U.S. have spent around $1.9 million on ads in 2025. Here are the top spenders year to date:

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Clips are Everywhere, but Democrats Aren’t – Yet

In today’s attention economy, campaigns aren’t just competing against their opposition. They’re going up against podcasters, brands, reality TV stars, sports, gamers, YouTubers and more — all vying for a slice of the same precious minutes people are spending on their scrolls.

As Democrats try to figure out how to break through this noise and win back voters, there’s an underutilized tactic that the for-profit industry has taken up while the left has ignored: clipping.

As you read this, “clippers” are trawling the internet for longform videos they can cut down, post, and monetize. Streamers are “clip farming” by manufacturing soundbites for those clippers to find and push to virality. Legacy media outlets have hopped on the bandwagon and started posting entire movies in minutes-long chunks. AI startups and Hulu shows alike are paying clippers to turn their content into viral videos.

The clipping ecosystem presents powerful opportunities for those who figure out how to participate in it — and it’s time for Democrats to join the fray. Here’s how I think we can:

1. Get better at clip farming.

There’s a reason we haven’t already seen a swell of clippers running with Democratic content: it doesn’t pop. Clippers have a nose for what will go viral and get monetized, and Democrats largely aren’t delivering that.

If Democrats want to actually break through, they need to be more intentional and use on-camera time to be more plainspoken, more emotional, and generally more exciting. It might sound crass, but yes, engineering a “clip that” moment will help your videos get more engagement, and more importantly, it will send a signal to other clippers that it’s worth taking a look for more where that came from.

Democrats should also prioritize working with people who already are getting clipped. Rep. Maxwell Frost provided a great model here when he gave YouTuber iShowSpeed a livestreamed tour of the U.S. Capitol — providing fodder not just for @Democrats, but for clippers as well.

2. Start posting a lot more clips ourselves.

Once we make compelling longform videos, we shouldn’t just rely on clippers to find and post them. It’s easier than ever to use AI tools or video editing apps to cut a full press conference or TV appearance into bite-sized pieces with viral potential. There’s no excuse to be leaving these opportunities on the table, especially when having a clip go viral is as much about posting quantity as it is about editing quality.

People like Aaron Rupar, Acyn, and yes, the folks at COURIER Newsroom are doing good work here, especially when it comes to finding and amplifying Republicans saying crazy things. But a handful of accounts is far from an ecosystem, and there’s a real lack of accounts amplifying positive clips from voices on the left.

As an experiment, I’ve spent the last three months using free tools to pull and post clips of Democrats on TikTok, and it’s safe to say the early results speak for themselves. Over 200,000 people in the U.S. — majority men, over 80% age 45 or older — have viewed videos already. Now imagine that reach scaled across multiple accounts or backed by actual budgets.

For some teams, that may mean sprinkling clips into your existing accounts. For others, maybe it’s time to build a separate page just to post these videos. Either way, content calendars need filling, and this is low hanging fruit to add to your toolkit.

3. Figure out paid clipping’s hurdles.

In an initial skim of Discord servers and sites that function as a marketplace between brands and clippers, I’ve only spotted one progressive voice embracing paid clipping.

There are understandable obstacles that could keep more folks from engaging here — determining FEC requirements, ensuring 501(c)3 or (c)4 compliance, and more — but there are real upsides to figuring it out. One paid clipping team says it helped drive 500 million views for an AI robot with just $40,000 and led a TikTok campaign that generated 12 million views for the show Adults.

It may not be the easiest sell to your lawyers, but it’s certainly worth trying.

Like any tactic that sees organic success — followed by brands trying to manufacture the same magic — there’s only so long before clipping becomes oversaturated and unusable. The only question is whether Democrats and progressives will move quickly enough to take advantage of the moment before it’s gone.

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Ready to Upgrade Your Ads with Catalist Data?

Catalist’s new digital audiences help progressives reach the right voters, faster! Access 130+ segments wherever you place ad buys with high match rates, emails + phones included. Email us at digital@catalist.us or See how you can activate your audiences today.

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