Vermont senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has created his own Twitch account. Just days before the first round of Democratic debates, the Sanders campaign has registered a Twitch account to boost the campaign's live video output, a representative told this week.
The push to tap into a younger demographic of media consumer ( o൲f Twitch users are between the age of 18 and 34-years-old) comes just days after the Senator to cancel all $1.6 trillion of student loan debt in the United States. Earlier this month, Sanders also tweeted in support of unionization within the video game indus𓃲try.
The Sanders campaign said it will look to use Twitch alongside other video platforms to promote a recurring "Bernie TV" 💟forum, which will likely feature discussions on the student debt plan among other policy issues.
“We’re moving toward doing a lot more live content on Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook, tapping into an audience where there’s not a lot of political content already,” Josh Miller-Lewis, the digital communications director for the Sanders campaign, told Recode.
Early this year, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made an appearance on Twitch during a . Among other ꧑contentious political topics, Ocasio-Cortez revealed that sဣhe never owned a Nintendo 64, "But I do think it's probably the best system out of all of them."
Ocasio-Cortez's use of soci💞al media and video live streaming, specifically via Instagram, has been for her quick rise within the Democratic party. Her laid-back, Q&A streams have been hailed as a trend-setting new way for politicians to interact 🥃with constituents and help previously hidden avenues of the political process.
The unfiltered and unedited nature of live streaming, though accessible, is also precarious territory for politicians who typically prefer strict control over their own image. Just last week, Ocasio-Cortez after comparing🍨 migrant camps on the U.S. southern bಞorder to concentration camps, a statement she made during an Instagram live stream.
Whether Sanders will be the only 2020 presidential hope꧑ful to plant a flag on Twitch is yet to be seen. It is also unclear how much video game-related content will be featured on the Sanders channel, if any. If the Senator is l🌳ooking to dip his toes into the gaming world, he might look to start with an RPG about his own political journey, a project that is currently being .