There is a political debate on TikTok. Politicians? Not so much.

President Biden and the White House regularly post to millions of followers on social media, talking about the economy on Facebook, sharing Christmas decorations on YouTube, presenting pardoned turkeys on Instagram and posting about infrastructure on the X Platform. They’re even on Threads.

But they don’t speak directly to 150 million Americans on TikTok. There is no official @POTUS, White House or Biden-Harris 2024 account. You’ll find just one of the Republican presidential candidates there — and just 37 sitting members of Congress, according to a New York Times review of accounts.

Some experts are calling next year the “TikTok election” due to the growing power and influence of the video app. TikTok may have been known for its viral dances in 2020, but it is increasingly becoming one news source for millennials and Gen Zers, who will be a powerful part of the electorate.

But less than a year after the election, most politicians are keeping their distance from the app as efforts mount in Washington and elsewhere to restrict or ban the app because of its ownership by Chinese company ByteDance. Many lawmakers and regulators have raised concerns that TikTok could put user information in the hands of officials in Beijing — an argument the company disputes.

However, by offering a huge microphone because of these concerns, politicians run the risk that they and their campaigns do not reach young people directly via the app. They can also be outmatched by smart challengers who may not feel as conflicted and can figure out how to use TikTok to their advantage.

Many campaigns are trying to hedge their bets by turning to a growing network of TikTok political influencers to share their messages or by creating short videos on YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels in the hopes that they will eventually trend on TikTok. To do that, they have to give up some control, and convince creators to work with them, often for little to no payment.

For many political consultants, the absence of politicians on TikTok may be untenable.

“It shapes the discourse even if you don’t use it,” says Teddy Goff, a leading digital strategist for President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist, said he told the candidates: “If you don’t get it banned in 2023, you have to go further in 2024.”

Several Republican presidential candidates have criticized TikTok during their recent debates, criticizing Vivek Ramaswamy, the only candidate to join the app despite previously calling it “digital fentanyl.” He defended joining TikTok, saying he did it to reach young voters.

Biden’s re-election campaign team said it did not need its own TikTok accounts to reach voters.

“The reality is that having an account would not make a substantial difference in what we need to do on TikTok,” said Rob Flaherty, Biden’s deputy campaign manager and former White House director of digital strategy. “The most important thing you can do is work through influencers.”

TikTok emerged as a political force during the 2022 midterm campaign, when Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, successfully defeated his opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, in a stream of sharp videos, and Rep. Jeff Jackson, Democrat of North Carolina, roasted a video filter to make his head look like a piece of broccoli while you talk about it reach a younger audience.

Annie Wu Henry, a 27-year-old digital strategist who helped manage Mr.’s TikTok account in 2022. Fetterman, said his use demonstrated TikTok’s potential reach and influence. She said she was surprised to see how clips and memes promoting Mr. Fetterman posted on the app, took off “and actual parts of a conversation were or were picked up by traditional media sources.”

Weeks after the election, however, Washington’s sentiment toward the company turned sour. The Biden administration, as well as most states, some cities and some college campuses, have banned use of the app on official devices. Some lawmakers have called for a national ban.

Today, only 7 percent of the 533 senators and representatives have verified their accounts on TikTok, and some have never posted anything, The Times analysis shows. No one is Republican. The few who have joined often post to the app from separate “TikTok phones” because of security concerns, said Mike Nellis, a Democratic digital strategist.

Mr. Jackson is the most popular, with 2.5 million followers, and Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, is in second place with 1.4 million. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota each have more than 200,000 followers.

Ms. Wu said campaigns, including Mr. Biden’s, could potentially leave a large audience on the table.

“It needs to be figured out, and there’s almost a rush right now about who’s going to do it,” she said.

The White House has used TikTok in recent years, teaming up with social media stars to promote access to Covid-19 vaccines and inform viewers about the situation between Russia and Ukraine. war and the Inflation Reduction Act. Several stars told The Times that they were not paid but wanted to participate.

This kind of solution is expected to be even more popular next year.

“There is a thriving industry beneath the surface of both agencies and platforms that help political organizations, social impact groups and politicians self-sponsor content on TikTok and partner with creators and influencers to spread messages,” said Brian Derrick, a political strategist and co. -founder of Oath, a platform for guiding donations to democratic campaigns.

TikTok prohibits paid political advertising, which includes paying creators for endorsements. It does not encourage politicians to join the platform, although it does verify official accounts.

A White House spokesperson, when asked about TikTok’s use, pointed to a rule banning the app from being used on federal devices as of March and declined to comment further.

Harry Sisson, a 21-year-old junior at New York University and political commentator on TikTok, started posting in 2020, when he was in high school, to help Mr. Biden’s campaign for president. He has amassed 700,000 followers.

Mr. Sisson said Democratic groups had offered him more opportunities over the past year and a half, including filming voting videos with Mr. Obama and watching the State of the Union at the White House. He didn’t get paid, but loved participating.

Notably, he said to the White House: “They have always emphasized that we are not here to tell you what to say. If you disagree with us, we will not get angry.”

Mr. Sisson said he made money from the views on his TikTok videos and accepted some paid collaborations with advocacy groups he believed in, such as Planned Parenthood, but his goal was to help elect Democrats.

AB Burns-Tucker, 34, is another political content creator who has participated in White House briefings. She posts on TikTok as @iamlegallyhype and has more than 700,000 followers. She said her account became popular after she made a popular explainer video about the war between Russia and Ukraine, which is popularly referred to world leaders like ‘Big Daddy Biden’ and ‘Big Bad P.’ She says she is now a news source for people who don’t tune in anywhere else.

“I talk about current events with my friends all the time, but most of them say, ‘Girl, I don’t watch the news, if you don’t tell me, I don’t know,'” she said. “I took that and ran with it.”

Ms. Burns-Tucker believes she has swayed voters, pointing to the passage of a recent ballot measure in Ohio that enshrined the right to abortion in the state constitution. She was paid by Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights to create a TikTok video urging people to vote for the ballot measure, which aligned with her personal beliefs, she said. “A lot of people in the comments section were like, I didn’t even know, I’ll be in line first thing tomorrow,” she added. The video was viewed 45,000 times.

People like Mr. Sisson and Ms. Burns-Tucker have no parallel among conservatives, said Amanda Carey Elliott, a digital consultant for Republicans.

Ms. Elliott said she was firmly against using TikTok based on the party’s position on China — but that there was also less incentive for Republicans to use it.

“There isn’t a huge culture of TikTok influencers on the right — it’s just not the same for us,” she said.

Still, some Republican advisers say the opportunity is too good to pass up. Mr. Wilson, the Republican strategist, has tried to guide candidates on signing up for the app after criticizing it.

“Candidates drive cars all the time – that doesn’t mean they want cars to be unregulated,” he said. “There is not necessarily hypocrisy if you are clear about your position and how you use it.”