The Lab Results: Political vs. Non-Political Creators

Why this matters

In the last few cycles, campaigns have poured money into creators without a clear answer to a basic question: what kind of creators actually get people to vote? We wanted to see if we could a detect a difference between political and non-political creators to answer this questions.

Most creator programs are judged on views and clicks, which say little about whether anyone showed up at the polls and who got them there. We measured this test against the state voter file to get a direct read on turnout, not just engagement.

THE test

OUR HYPOTHESIS

Creator content will turn out more low-to-mid propensity voters than standard GOTV ads, and political creators will outperform non-political ones.

WHAT WE TESTED

We randomly split 430K Wisconsin Democrats into three lists. One saw ads from political creators, one from non-political creators, and one saw standard GOTV ads. Creators were matched across groups on age, race, and gender, and each made two to three pieces of content.

After the election, we matched each list against the voter file to compare turnout and early voting.

Political

Progressive civic, activism, or political commentary creators with Wisconsin audiences

Non-Political

Wisconsin or Midwest lifestyle, food, sports, or entertainment creators

RACE

WI Supreme Court

TIMING

Mar–Apr 2026

AUDIENCE

Low-mid propensity dems

PLATFORM

Awareness/reach

WHAT we found

A positive signal for creator content, not yet statistically significant

Creator content outperformed standard ads, but was not stat sig

The lift points the right way but falls short of what this sample could confirm. We needed a difference of about 0.60 percentage points or more to reach significance.

Creator type made little difference in turnout lift or cost

Political and non-political creators landed within a few voters and a few dollars of each other. Campaigns can confidently tap a wide pool of creators.

Key learnings

Creator content can move turnout. Creator content lifted turnout 0.27 points over standard ads. The result isn't statistically significant yet, but every comparison pointed the same way, and in close races small margins decide outcomes.
The type of creator mattered less than expected. Political and non-political creators performed nearly the same on turnout and cost. Campaigns don't need to limit themselves to political messengers.
Creators are within reach for small budgets. At $1,500 - $2,500 per creator, the production cost is a fraction of traditional ads, and the cost per incremental voter landed around $60.
Turnout effects are small, so tests need to be sized for them. Comparing 3 groups at once raised the bar for any one result to count. Picking a single primary comparison and sizing the sample up front gives the next test a fairer shot significance.

What we Recommend

Make creators a core GOTV format
Creator ads perform on the platforms they're native to because they don't look like typical ads. Build them into GOTV programs on Meta.

Recruit from a wider bench
Political and non-political creators performed alike, so source broadly instead of limiting yourself to civic messengers.

Take it from promising to proven
Run your next test with balanced groups, a larger sample, and one primary comparison decided before launch.

Test beyond Meta
See whether the turnout lift holds on other creator-first platforms that allow for list upload, like YouTube Shorts.

Political vs. non-political creators