In London, Budapest and New York, a new generation of political insurgents have turned social media into a campaign engine

What unites a left-wing New York mayor, a conservative Hungarian challenger and the leader of the Green Party in the UK? Not ideology, but a shared playbook of leveraging social media and grassroots energy to challenge traditional power.

New York mayor Zohran Mamdani leapt into icy Coney Island waters, joking: “I’m freezing… your rent.” Hungary’s new prime minister Péter Magyar brought tea and cake to pro-Orbán journalists filming him in the cold. Ahead of the UK’s local elections in May, Green Party leader Zack Polanski gave viral comedian Kareem Rahma his “subway take” on the London Underground. These aren’t just viral moments – they are a deliberate political tactic to attract new voters and volunteers mid-scroll.

Green Party social media officer Simon Larkins explains why the strategy works: “If you can get a good hook in an Instagram reel, people don’t skip past it. You’ve got to attract young people with a little bit of humour.”

That logic has reshaped how social campaigns are planned. “Whenever you go somewhere you think about how it will look, how it’s shot and how it can become content,” Larkins says.  

The results of this effort are tangible. Since Polanski became the Green Party’s leader in September 2025, party membership has nearly quadrupled from 66,000 to almost a quarter of a million. Last month, the Greens won their first ever borough mayors in Hackney and Lewisham, areas long considered Labour strongholds.

Across the pond, Mamdani defeated former governor Andrew Cuomo to win the 2025 New York mayoral election, despite polling in single digits when he first entered the race. His viral videos helped mobilise voters – more than one in four young New Yorkers voted, with 75 per cent of those backing Mamdani. It also attracted more than 50,000 volunteers for his campaign.

In Hungary’s April 2026 elections, Tisza Party candidate Magyar used viral sounds on TikTok and candid moments to build rapport with young voters, defeating Viktor Orbán after 16 years in power with 55 per cent of the vote. His victory came just two years after he became opposition leader.

“Right-wing politics can just point to people on small boats and say there’s the problem. Our issues are abstract and our job is to make that visual”

Right-wing political movements were among the first to master social media-driven campaigning. Nigel Farage, who spent decades on the fringes of British politics before breaking through into the mainstream, is currently the UK’s most followed politician on social media, with 1.4m on TikTok followers and one million on Instagram. In this year’s local elections, Reform made major gains across the country, gaining more than 1,400 council seats.

Jeremy Clancy, the filmmaker behind Polanski’s viral videos, believes progressive movements are harder to sell online. “Right-wing politics can just point to people on small boats and say there’s the problem. Our issues are abstract and our job is to make that visual,” he says.

To take Orbán down after more than a decade-and-a-half in power, Magyar, a conservative-leaning liberal, shone a light on corruption at the heart of his opponent’s Fidesz government through humorous videos. He also encouraged the creation of around 4,000 local groups called “Tisza Islands”, where people could become involved in politics without the need for traditional party membership. 

“That combination of top-down control and grassroots participation was quite interesting,” says Daniel Kallo, a Hungarian political analyst. These groups organised charity drives, cookouts and political discussions in rural areas outside of Budapest. Meanwhile, Magyar’s social media team used semi-candid shots, humour and familiar national symbols. 

The Greens had a similar strategy ahead of the local elections. “At election time there are really two goals with social media: mobilising voters and mobilising volunteers,” Larkins says. “A lot of recent content has been direct-to-camera videos asking people to campaign, donate or turn out to vote.”

If there is a new blueprint, it is not simply to go viral, but to use social media to create a recognisable narrative that can encourage on-the-ground activism. Clancy says that these politicians “recognised the power of video and tore up the rulebook”. Whether the new rulebook creates lasting political power will ultimately depend on the policy work and organising that follows the slick editing and trend-setting.

Featured Image: Laptop screen with large magnet attracting social media content icons. Credit: Nuchjaree (Adobe Stock)