One of Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s most viral videos on social media begins with the congresswoman saying, “Yo, this is the Ranking Rizzler on Appropriations serving Connecticut’s 3rd District.”
For about a minute, DeLauro explains the role of the House Appropriations Committee, using catchy slang popularized by Gen Z.
“We are not chasing the bag, we are the bag,” she says, referring to how the Appropriations Committee determines how Congress spends money.
In Washington, younger politicians are assumed to be the titans of social media engagement, while other Democrats look to them as possible blueprints for their party as they find their footing in an online ecosystem they worry favors Republicans. Edgy posts are something Democrats more broadly are still trying to get comfortable with.
Which is why it can come as a surprise that DeLauro, who is 82 and has been in Congress for more than 30 years, is thriving on social media.
Unlike her octogenarian colleagues who mostly post pictures at events in their district and video clips of their floor speeches, DeLauro merges her outgoing personality and style — she’s known for her purple-streaked hair and her shoe collection — with pop culture to talk politics and connect with voters in her district and on a national level.
This has translated to more than 13,000 followers on Instagram and 62,000 followers on X. It’s not much compared to some of her colleagues like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has 9.3 million followers on Instagram alone, or House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who has 658,000 followers on Instagram. But she’s proof that a member can adapt to new ways to connect, regardless of how they’ve done business in the past.
“I just get engaged and take advantage of the various platforms,” DeLauro told NOTUS, pointing to the wider conversation in the Democratic Party about capitalizing on social media to win elections. “You’ve got to go with the times.”
Her online rise isn’t incidental. DeLauro has a team of three chronically online staffers in their 20s who are eager to pitch her fresh ideas that could showcase her work in Congress and help transmit the Democratic Party’s message to a broader audience.
“It’s really important to notice what people are consuming and how you can make that fit within a context that works for us,” Diana Solares, DeLauro’s digital director, told NOTUS. “It’s not just meeting people where they are, it’s also meeting them on how they’re used to taking in that content.”
DeLauro’s social media team texts “each other constantly,” Solares said, and the process from brainstorming to implementation “moves really fast.”
The congresswoman is also involved in crafting her online footprint.
“I got the hang of it,” DeLauro told NOTUS.
King Green, DeLauro’s communications director, told NOTUS that the team wanted to find ways to be creative and even take risks.
Green added that the “Ranking Rizzler” video is an example of how they hopped onto a social media trend — one where older business owners market their services using Gen Z slang that they otherwise wouldn’t use regularly — and used “a joke to get through to people.”
“That [idea] came from Diana consuming content, just using social media like a normal person, and then coming out to me and saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be kind of funny if we did this with Rosa?’ and me being like, ‘Hell yeah.’” Green said. “We struck the iron while it was hot.”
The “Ranking Rizzler” video has 1.6 million views on X and more than 290,000 views on TikTok. DeLauro also has several other posts across platforms such as Instagram and YouTube that have garnered tens of thousands of views. In one TikTok post with more than 27,000 views, a slideshow flicks through several pictures of the congresswoman as the song “It Girl” plays in the background. In the post’s caption, DeLauro encourages her followers to embrace their self-expression through fashion.
In addition to posting more short-form videos of DeLauro speaking at congressional hearings, cable TV appearances and events in her districts, DeLauro’s team has also started posting videos of the congresswoman taken by her fans, as well as “edits” — short videos focusing on a certain character or pop culture narrative — like one where she mocked Republicans who blocked Democratic efforts to keep President Donald Trump from turning a gifted Qatari jet into Air Force One.
Why emphasize short-form content? “It’s the stuff people are engaging with the most,” Green said.
Short-form videos are also likely to catch users’ attention because of their quick, punchy nature that can stand out in a flood of content on social media. (Instagram users share 1,099 posts per second, according to data from Spectralplex, a content monitoring website.)
And they are an effective way for DeLauro to keep her constituents abreast of the details of what’s going on in Congress, especially of moments that aren’t watched by those who aren’t plugged into the minutiae of politics.
“Rosa has a lot of great lines,” Solares said, pointing out that they prioritize committee markups where smaller-than-normal audiences may be tuned in. “She’s very good. She’s very punchy, so it’s very easy for me to find those clips in regular markups that people maybe won’t watch in full because they go on for a while.”
Her staff also considers DeLauro’s safety when creating posts, especially given the rise in threats against public officials. They don’t post content that shows DeLauro’s home and avoid posting if she’s still at the location the clip is from.
DeLauro’s team said they have seen a marked increase in trolls and attacks on the congresswoman’s accounts.
“She’s always been, and probably forever will be for the rest of her career, a boogeyman to the right,” Green said.
Still, DeLauro believes engaging with social media is essential.
“We’re in a new age, and it is on social media and it is about reaching people where they are and reaching young people,” she told NOTUS. “I’m excited to do it, to get involved. You can’t be stuck in time, you’ve got to move forward.”