A Meme Masterclass From the Fetterman campaign

John Fetterman recently clinched the Democratic party nomination in his race to be Pennsylvania’s next US Senator.

Fetterman, the current Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, will be running against a recent addition to Pennsylvania politics… and Pennsylvania itself for that matter, Dr. Oz, who won his primary election by just 951 votes.

For the entirety of his campaign, the tattooed, shorts-rocking candidate from Braddock, PA has been leading the way nationally in Democratic fundraising and really created a masterclass in digital campaigning that any would-be candidate for office should take note of.

In fact, if you want some notes, check out ours here. We did a digital deep dive of Fetterman and Oz’s digital campaigns a while back!

While much of Fetterman’s campaign messaging had been focused on convincing people that he’s the best Democratic candidate for this moment, he’s now shifted his focus to convincing Pennsylvania voters why Dr. Oz is the wrong candidate for them.

Luckily, for him (and democracy!),  Dr. Oz has given him a lot to work with.

This includes scrubbing his campaign site of any mention of Donald Trump – only after winning the Republican primary with help from Trump’s endorsement, being an overall quack doctor, and worst of all – not even being from Pennsylvania. (And we don’t mean in the he-wasn’t-born-there way some folks talk about political candidates… we mean in the he-doesn’t-live-there-now-and-has-never-lived-there kind of way.)

These are just some of the fire memes that the Fetterman camp has used to point out Dr. Oz’s Pennsylvania-less roots, and we think that they do a pretty good job for a couple of reasons:

First, they’re just downright funny. While Fetterman is a serious politician, he and his campaign want to make sure their audience knows he’s just a normal person – assuming you hadn’t already gathered that from his cargo shorts, tattoos, and professional wrestler vibes.

Second, Fetterman’s campaign knows their platforms and they know how to wrack up those engagements. They know their campaign is connecting with not only Pennsylvanians, but also a national, young and engaged audience of Democratic party supporters excited to like, share… and donate!.

By speaking in terms that are both human and engaging to people on social, Fetterman has gained a ton of followers and helped to point out one of the massive flaws of Dr. Oz’s candidacy, and he did it all by letting the memes do the talking.

So don’t be afraid to get out there and do some meme-ing of your own. If you want some help, hit us up.

We’d like to think that we understand these platforms pretty well ourselves.

Learn more about our work, and get in touch!