This aging Republican senator is an unfiltered TikTok superstar
Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana looked closely into his phone's selfie camera, then flipped the view around to reveal a lush oasis: his backyard.
"This is another one of those silly videos my staff told me I needed to make," the 74-year-old junior senator said in the video posted on June 17. Kennedy admitted, "I don't know why on God's green Earth anybody should care," before showing viewers his manicured grass, moisturized with the help of a sprinkler, and two patio umbrellas on an unstained deck.
He proceeded to warn viewers around the world not to venture on said lawn, or they'd risk stepping in "dog poo."
Nearly 750,000 users do seem interested in Kennedy's whereabouts. The backyard video generated over 1 million TikTok views.
He's also the most-followed Republican senator on TikTok and has 1.3 million Instagram followers, where his videos similarly go viral. The little-known Southern legislator who shares the name of one of America's most famous presidents endeared himself to the internet with candor and off-color humor (recently, he introduced followers to his elliptical trainer, Margaret).
Social media stardom could serve the Louisiana lawmaker well as he considers a bid to succeed President Donald Trump at the top of his party's 2028 ticket. Trump, of course, owns a social media platform, Truth Social, and before that, he relied on X, formerly Twitter, to relay his thoughts and opinions.
Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris both used social media posts to appeal to younger voters during the 2024 election. Young men ultimately helped Trump win the race.
"Political leaders who are thinking long term are really actually very smart to appeal to young voters, knowing that once you start as an 18- or 19- or 20-year-old voting for one party, you're likely to do that for the rest of your life," said Debra Leiter, a political science professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Kennedy has quietly become a potential White House contender. Kennedy told Katie Pavlich on NewsNation that he is focused on the midterms and his reelection to the Senate, but wouldn't rule out a run. "I've had some people talk to me about it. Doesn't mean I'm going to do it. But remember that song by the Judds, 'Why Not Me?'" Kennedy said.
His book, "How to Test Negative for Stupid: And Why Washington Never Will," released in October, was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller. When asked on comedian Theo Von's podcast "This Past Weekend" whether he bears any relation to the famous Democratic Kennedy family, he said, "If I am, I'm the poor side of the family."
Sen. Kennedy's office did not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment about his popularity on social media.
Why politicians like John Kennedy are living unfiltered lives
Kennedy has amassed 4.8 million TikTok likes, dominating his peers on the platform.
Senate Republicans often steer clear of TikTok, a Gen Z favorite that Kennedy and his colleagues once considered banning because of its ties to China. His only Republican contemporaries with verified accounts are Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy, who has no videos on an account with fewer than 300 followers, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is inching towards 24,000 followers.
Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, is the nation's most followed U.S. senator on TikTok. He has 1.7 million followers.
Kennedy, a former Democrat, was the five-term state treasurer of Louisiana. He was first elected treasurer in 1999, but switched parties and became a Republican in August 2007, a year before President Barack Obama won the White House.
After two previous failed Senate bids, Kennedy won a third contest in 2016, the same year Trump was elected to the Oval Office.
In 2022, he was reelected, trouncing his main Democratic opponent by nearly 45 percentage points. In recent years, Kennedy found online fame as fan accounts chronicled his cable news appearances on TikTok.
One video posted last November featured a montage that captured his quick wit, earning 7 million TikTok views. A similar post from this July garnered 600,000.
"I'm not saying you're the dumbest person in the world, but you better hope the dumbest person in the world doesn't die," Kennedy once said on Fox News. "I don't know why we have to give money to countries that hate us; they should be able to hate us for free," Kennedy remarked in another clip.
He dramatically joked to Fox's Martha MacCallum, "God, please give me patience because if you give me strength, I'm going to need bail money."
Chicken salad and Charlie the dog offer relatable look at senator's life
One expert said online content featuring Kennedy resonates because he is authentic.
April Eichmeier, a professor of emerging media at the University of St. Thomas, said: "The kind of backyard folksy, you know, relatable, humorous John Kennedy, that kind of stuff would have come out only in the Parade magazine on the weekends" 30 years ago.
"We don't need to wait for that anymore, and it doesn't need to be filtered," she said.
Scott Dunn, a political communication professor at Radford University, told USA TODAY that social media allows politicians like Kennedy to form parasocial relationships with their followers, effectively creating one-sided intimacy.
The creation of a parasocial relationship is evident in Kennedy's content. In a recent viral video, he donned a backwards ballcap and introduced followers to his 9-year-old dog, Charlie, who is part-Maltese, part-Terrier.
He noted that Charlie – previously owned by a homeless person – is muscular, sturdy and compact.
"Charlie also serves as my wireless doorbell, especially when the UPS man or the Amazon man comes," Kennedy said. "He's forgotten how to do it a lot, but sometimes his memory comes back, and I can get him to walk three or four feet on his hind legs and beg 'cause that's what the homeless person taught him how to do," the senator added.
The Charlie introduction garnered 235,000 likes on TikTok. Eichmeier, the emerging media professor, said Kennedy's humorous videos are an entry point to his politics.
"That's the place to get people interested in what you have to say and hope that they look somewhere else," she said.
In one of Kennedy's most popular videos – which has 3 million views and 478,000 likes – the legislator gave his followers the inside scoop about a beloved meal. He shared the recipe for his wife Becky's "not-so-world-famous" chicken salad. A jar of salad and two white pieces of bread were spread out on his marble-topped kitchen island.
"This chicken salad is better than sex," Kennedy said, before he clarified. "Not really, but you get the point."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: This aging Republican senator is an unfiltered TikTok superstar
Reporting by Jay Stahl, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect
This story was originally published July 11, 2026 at 10:35 AM.