2025 Election Winners Dominated Podcast Guest Spots.

President Trump’s mastery of the manosphere of podcast hosts helped propel him to the White House last year. This year, Democrats swept the high-profile races on election night. Podcasting’s role may not have generated as many headlines, but an analysis by Edison Research reveals that candidates flocked to the medium again in 2025.

“Candidates are investing significant time and effort into booking podcast interviews, and they are reaching an impressive number of listeners nationally,” says Edison. It says New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and New Jersey Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill both appeared on podcasts with significantly higher U.S. weekly podcast audiences age 18 and older than their competitors.

Edison’s review of where candidates have turned up since the start of the year shows the winners Tuesday night were also more frequent podcast guests. In New Jersey, Democrat Sherrill appeared on 18 podcasts between January and October. That was two more than Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli. Edison’s podcast each estimates show podcasts that featured appearances by Sherrill reached an estimated 4.1 million weekly podcast listeners compared to 972,000 for the shows featuring Ciattarelli.

In New York City, Democrat Mamdani sat down for 31 different podcast interviews, compared to 18 appearances for independent Andrew Cuomo. Using its own Podcast Metrics data, Edison calculates that the podcast titles Mamdani appeared on reached approximately 12.5 million listeners age 18+ in an average week. That compared to an audience size of 1.2 million for Cuomo.Edison acknowledges in a blog post that there are limits to determining a podcast’s reach in a local election market Its reach estimates are on a national level and measure weekly reach by show, not individual episodes. But it says that even though not everyone that heard the podcast episodes were able to vote in either the New Jersey or New York City elections, the data illustrates how podcasting is becoming an increasingly important and popular megaphone in U.S. elections.

“Larger podcast audiences do not necessarily mean more votes, but data from Edison Podcast Metrics illustrates the increasingly important role podcasts are playing in the outreach strategy of political campaigns,” it says.

Neither paid media nor earned media is definitively better according to experts, who say that the modern political campaigns instead require a strategic mix of both to be successful. Paid media like radio ads allow for message control and precise targeting, while earned media offers higher credibility. They say that because messages are filtered through independent sources such as journalists or podcast hosts, earned media is often perceived as more credible and unbiased than paid advertising. It is also cost-effective, extending reach without direct ad spend.

Heading into next year’s midterm elections, Edison’s tally shows that 2024 may have been labeled as the “podcast election” — but there are no signs of a shift back as all four candidates in New York and New Jersey were on roughly as many podcasts as Trump’s 20 appearances last year — or in the case of Mamdani, significantly more. “Candidates are now using podcasts more than ever to connect with potential supporters,” Edison says.