Nick Fuentes Urges Followers to Vote Democratic on Election Day

Status: Reported by the Forward and Vanity Fair; impact not measured.

Update, Nov. 5

On election night, Fuentes said, "You have the groypers and the DSA all going absolutely hard for the Democrats tonight," according to Media Matters. Related coverage of DSA-backed House wins: DSA More Than Triples Its House Presence as All Five Newcomers Win.

Separately, TFN reported on Nov. 4 — via a French translation of his remarks — that Fuentes predicted many people will leave the Republican Party and that his followers should fill the vacuum (TFN).

On the Nov. 4 Timcast, Tim Pool said, "That D shift, a lot of that probably just straight up Nick Fuentes. Not even a joke," and that Fuentes "speaks to young men," Media Matters reported. No study has measured Fuentes's effect on the vote.

The Geller Report applied a "Groyper" label to Vice President JD Vance in a Nov. headline about Vance's midterm comments.

On the morning of the midterms, streamer Nick Fuentes told his followers: "Get out and vote Democrat today." He framed it as a tactical protest over the Iran war, Israel policy, the Epstein files and deportations, not a shift to the left, according to the Forward.

From "veto" to backing Democrats

Fuentes, who broke with President Trump over the Iran war, went from urging his audience to withhold their votes to openly backing Democrats. "I've been very open about why I'm not supporting Trump, and that's because he started a war with Iran," he told Vanity Fair on Oct. 29, describing his followers' votes as a "veto." "We can exercise the veto, and I think that's the source of our power," he said.

By Tuesday morning, his message was "Get out and vote Democrat today." On his Rumble show, he pushed votes for Democrats in House and Senate races and called the move tactical, not ideological. He said he would accept the blame if Republicans suffered heavy losses (Forward).

Democrats are now projected to win both chambers of Congress. How much his audience moved votes hasn't been measured.

In Ohio, Fuentes had urged his followers to back Democrat Amy Acton over Vivek Ramaswamy for governor, in an Oct. 8 post that drew more than 2.1 million views (Cincinnati Exchange). AP lists Acton as the winner (ABC News live updates). No one has measured whether his audience affected the result.

Opinion: the "Heritage American" argument

This section describes an opinion piece. A Nov. 3 opinion column in WBUR's Cognoscenti traces the rise of the phrase "Heritage American" through JD Vance's Claremont speech and notes that Vivek Ramaswamy links it to Fuentes and the Groypers. The writer argues the Groyper use of the idea is exclusionary.

Related

• DSA More Than Triples Its House Presence as All Five Newcomers Win
• Trump Says He'll Accept Midterm Losses, Blames His Absence From the Ballot