Hasan Piker appears to understand that his moment as a sought-after influencer on the 2026 midterm campaign trail has cooled — and he does not seem especially bothered by it.
Speaking off the cuff to Fox News last weekend, the socialist Twitch streamer, who has built a social-media audience of nearly 8 million followers, waved away the latest criticism from “centrist” Democrats. He also dismissed quiet requests from some political allies who have urged him to soften his tone as the party looks to improve its chances in November.
“My job is not to make the Democratic Party look good,” Piker said, adding that it would be “very funny” if anyone at the Democratic National Committee tried to coordinate with him.
In the accelerated world of social media politics — the same ecosystem that turned Piker into a major online personality and has reportedly helped him earn $10 million — a few weeks can change everything.
Not long ago, the 35-year-old was a prized presence during primary season, drawing demand for campaign stops and streaming appearances. Rolling Stone described him as “six foot four and jacked,” the New York Times called him “very handsome,” and GQ highlighted his “thirsted-after body” in photo spreads that featured him shirtless in a pool and nude in a bubble-filled bathtub.
In Michigan, Piker appeared on college campuses for Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrats’ strongly anti-Zionist Senate nominee, and later joined him to celebrate at El-Sayed’s Election Night victory party.
He also traveled to Brooklyn to lend support to the congressional campaigns of Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, both protégés of New York’s socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani.
Still, Piker’s preferred candidates did not all win. He campaigned for Francesca Hong in the Wisconsin governor’s race and promoted Effie Phillips-Staley’s New York congressional campaign, but both were defeated in their Democratic primaries.
Hasan Piker appears to understand that his welcome as an influencer on the 2026 midterm campaign trail has faded — and he seems fine with it
Praised by Rolling Stone as “six foot four and jacked,” the 35-year-old Piker was once heavily sought after for campaign appearances and stream time
The political calculation behind bringing Piker into those races was clear. El-Sayed summed it up during an interview with ESPN host Stephen A. Smith: “There are 3 million people who listen to Hasan Piker and I want to offer them a pathway into an electoral movement.”
The far-left candidates who did succeed were backed, like Mamdani and Queens Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, by the increasingly influential Democratic Socialists of America. The group has become adept at recruiting and running young candidates who combine polished public images with hard-edged socialist messaging. Those DSA-aligned candidates may still want access to Piker’s audience, but they now appear far less willing to absorb the political cost of being seen at his side.
That shift came after a viral video surfaced showing Piker mocking the memory of Charlie Kirk, the young conservative leader slain by an assassin last year, by derisively singing the ‘We are Charlie Kirk’ song onstage at a live podcast event in San Francisco. Equally troubling was Piker’s claim on his August 20 stream: ‘If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they’re singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone will come around and take action – not against Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.’
To many ears it sounded like a justification for – even an incitement to – violence.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the Brooklyn Democrat who is a moderate only when juxtaposed with the likes of Mamdani, denounced those making ‘dangerous… threats against the safety of our Jewish brothers and sisters at a moment of rising hate.’ But even that X post omitted Piker’s name, lest the minority leader remind general-election audiences of the deep inroads Piker has made with the party’s activist base.
On college campuses in Michigan , Piker stumped for Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrats’ passionately anti-Zionist Senate nominee and they celebrated together at El-Sayed’s (smiling, bottom right) victorious Election Night rally
Not all of Piker’s picks prevailed; he campaigned for Francesca Hong (right) in her Wisconsin gubernatorial race (Pictured: Rep Ilhan Omar and Piker with Hong on August 2)
James Rosen is chief Washington correspondent at Newsmax and the author, most recently, of Scalia: Supreme Court Years, 1986-2001.
Pressed for comment, El-Sayed reaffirmed that only he and selected staff speak for his campaign, then snapped at reporters: ‘You would think, if you turned on any media, that this whole campaign is about a streamer in California.’
AOC sang from the same hymnal. Asked if El-Sayed should do more to distance himself from Piker, the Queens Democrat – presently mulling a bid for her party’s presidential nomination, and already endorsed by Piker – told CNN: ‘I do not think that a Twitch streamer is what the people of Michigan are concerning themselves with.’
Note what is absent from these statements: opposition to the sentiments Piker expresses, the bombast that, even by today’s debased standards, stands apart.
Piker’s most infamous remark, from 2019 – that America ‘deserved 9/11’ – the streamer only kinda-sorta walked back, conceding ‘inappropriate’ language. Nowhere, however, did he disavow the substance of his comment, as he reaffirmed last weekend. ‘[America’s] meddling in the affairs in the Middle East actually transpired these horrifying events,’ Piker told Fox. ‘It’s not a controversial thing [to argue]. It was the language that I used that was controversial.’
Abdul El-Sayed’s own comments, uploaded to social media the day after the September 11 attacks, were similarly barbed: ‘Today, I mourn the 3K lives, 6K injuries, & infrastructural devastation in NYC, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my faith. Tomorrow, I’ll mourn ~1M lives, millions of injuries, & infrastructural devastation in 3 countries, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my country.’
Piker advocates an arms embargo against Israel; El-Sayed agrees but goes farther, urging an end to US military aid as well to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Where Piker proclaims Hamas ‘a thousand times better than Israel,’ El-Sayed is content simply to equate the two, telling CNN: ‘Hamas – evil. Israeli government – evil.’
After live-streaming from China last November, Piker said the communist government there offers ‘a lot we can learn from’; he has also fantasized that our streets will ‘soak in…red capitalist blood.’
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the independent who caucuses with the Democrats and serves as the unofficial godfather of the modern socialist movement in America, has likewise praised the Chinese government, while condemning its authoritarianism, for having achieved ‘more progress in addressing extreme poverty than any country in the history of civilization.’
Senator Bernie Sanders has likewise praised the Chinese government
Likewise, neither Piker’s prophecy of violence against American Jews in response to their support of Israel nor his open mockery of Charlie Kirk after his assassination have drawn any rebuke from the DSA-backed candidates, nor from their forbears already in elected office.
Piker himself, in short, may be gone from the 2026 campaign trail, but Pikerism continues to burn brightly in the hearts and minds of Democratic candidates across America.
This is why the social-media star sheds few tears over the blowback he has received from ‘centrist’ segments of the Democratic Party. After all, his online followership and personal wealth will likely continue to grow; all that requires is another incendiary statement, another pin-up pose.
The stakes for the country are far larger.
In all the races drawing attention on Election Night, one of the most closely watched balloting outcomes will be whether Pikerism – the toxic DSA stew of anti-Zionism, antisemitism and redistributionism – is here to stay.
James Rosen is chief Washington correspondent at Newsmax and the author, most recently, of Scalia: Supreme Court Years, 1986-2001.
