The Colbert Effect: What Instagram Data Reveals About What Democrats Want

The 2026 Texas Senate Democratic primary is a natural experiment in digital campaigning. Two young, high-profile, Democratic candidates with a seemingly instinctual understanding of how to communicate in the modern media environment not only facing off against one another, but finding themselves at the center of controversies that reflect the appetite of voters one year into Trump’s second term

We tracked both candidates instagram performance data across a 6.5 month panel window. The data tells a clear story about what drives support online, and potentially, on Election Day.

One quasi-television appearance rewrote the trajectory of this race. Talarico's YouTube-only Colbert episode on February 16–17 produced a surge of +149,154 followers in five days. His daily follower gain jumped from a baseline of roughly +917/day to +29,831/day: a 32x increase. No other event in the race comes close.

For context, across eight key race moments we tracked, the AFL-CIO debate, the Emerson poll, Allred's endorsement of Crockett, the Talarico-Allred controversy, most produced shifts of +300–900 followers per day. Baseline growth during the two-candidate phase was roughly +2,000/day for both candidates. Most political events don't move the needle on Instagram. Only genuine viral moments do.

The Colbert appearance and related discourse expanded Talarico's audience. The Talarico-Allred controversy activated Crockett's existing base, but didn't grow it.

The "mediocre Black man" allegation and Allred's subsequent endorsement of Crockett dominated political media coverage for nearly two weeks. On Instagram, the impact was negligible: Talarico's daily change went from +1,715 to +2,078. Crockett's went from +2,193 to +1,944.

Crockett's engagement rate did spike, up 51%, suggesting her existing followers engaged more intensely around the controversy. But engagement didn't convert to growth.

What does this say about the nature of the controversies Democrats care about in Trump 2.0? One critical reading of the Talarico-Allred controversy is that its failure to resonate with a broader audience is indicative of Democratic voters' ambivalence towards taking seriously the claims of bias, racism, and sexism within our own house. The other reading is that there is a large audience uninterested in supporting the disingenuous weaponization of identity politics to further the careers of moderate Democrats at the expense of new, progressive entrants into the political arena.

Regardless, the outcome online is the same — Talarico vs. Trump's FCC brought new followers into his fold. Talarico vs. Allred did not send any to Rep. Crockett's.

The Congresswoman's increased engagement rate should not be interpreted as a sign she is running a stronger online base-amplification-campaign while Talarico is fighting for new audiences and new voters at the expense of base engagement. Talarico still leads on follower engagement rate. His average ER across the panel window (6.54%) exceeds both Team-Crockett accounts: 3.1x higher than her campaign account (2.10%) and 2.7x higher than her government account (2.46%).

The caveat: The panel data tracks engagement rate as the average number of likes and comments divided by the total number of followers - not viewers. Talarico started with fewer followers, which naturally inflates his engagement rates. But two things cut against dismissing the gap entirely. First, it suggests his organic reach is disproportionate to his follower count, with fewer followers, he's reaching a comparable number of voters. Second, even as he's caught up in follower growth, he's still averaging 1.5–2.5x higher engagement rates than Rep. Crockett.