Dynamism, courage, and wit are words that few are likely to associate with the mainstream Democratic party, particularly after its capitulation to Republicans’ budget demands last year.
Polls show that majorities of Democratic voters think their party is weak and ineffective. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, is even more unpopular than Donald Trump. People are crying out for a bold voice, someone to take the fight to an increasingly authoritarian Republican party.
Enter Isaiah Martin, a 27-year-old Democrat with a cult following on social media who, in his words, has frequently put “belt to ass” when taking on Republican opponents.
Martin, from Houston, exploded across Instagram and TikTok through February, gaining 400m views across his social platforms after he took part in a “Surrounded” event, hosted by the media company Jubilee.
The nearly two-hour video is compulsive viewing, perhaps even essential viewing for leftists in need of lift. Martin, with a cool demeanor and a seemingly limitless range of statistics, is surrounded by 20 self-identified “Maga Republicans”, who take it in turn to debate him on four Trump-related talking points. Martin is Black, most of the Republicans are white; the majority of them, after dueling with Martin, are flustered and humiliated.
His first debating partner, a young man with a red tie, slicked-back hair and a supercilious expression, was a perfect example. Martin stated the claim “Trump’s mass deportation plan is making us less safe”. His opponent set out to prove him wrong, and almost immediately fell flat on his face.
“According to the DHS [Department of Homeland Security], 70% of the people who have been deported so far have been criminals,” the Republican, who is running for Congress in California, said. Unfortunately, he had his number completely upside down.
“Of interior removals, 70% of the people deported literally have not been convicted criminals,” Martin said. In a chef’s kiss moment, he calmly added: “What are you talking about?” Martin had his numbers right, and people in the comments were loving it.
“Isaiah crushing that man’s Congress dreams live on stream is wild,” one said. The Republican congressional hopeful got progressively louder, and sweatier, as he went on. Martin kept his voice calm and stuck to his talking points, like a crisis negotiator talking to an unwell person.
The Surrounded video kept on like that, Martin remaining unruffled as his debate opponents became more and more emotional. It wasn’t by accident: the episode was filmed in Los Angeles, and the morning before it was filmed Martin said he went to the beach and “watched the waves a little bit, got in the right mood”. He needed to be zen.
“One of the things that you can’t really hear while you’re watching it is it’s actually kind of loud. They’re constantly talking to you while you’re debating, and they’re trying to throw you off base. It’s really like walking into an arena, like you’re walking into an away game,” he told the Guardian.
“They’re really, really try to get under your skin.”
In addition to serving as a forum for rightwingers to embarrass themselves, a look at the YouTube comments, and at subsequent Reddit threads, shows just how much it was also a shot in the arm for those who wish Democrats would confront their opponents.
“You can only legally walk eight dogs in California. This guy just dog-walked 20,” one person wrote under the Surrounded video.
“Isaiah Martin didn’t even break a sweat with this absolute beat-down,” said another.
One posted: “This is a debate equivalent of a John Wick action scene: just one dude crushing 20 people without breaking a sweat.”
At a time when Trump and the Republican party are riding roughshod over traditional norms, the likes of Schumer, with his scholar’s posture, nose-perched glasses and dogged commitment to a long-gone set of political norms, just aren’t cutting it.
A CNN poll in January found that majority of Democrats think their party “will be ineffective in Congress”: more damningly, a New Republic poll of 2,400 Democratic voters in January found that 69% said it would be “somewhat to extremely appropriate” to describe Democrats as “weak”. In the same poll, 75% said they want Democrats to “be more aggressive in calling out Republicans”.
“It’s our responsibility to go on and talk to folks that just have different views. And I think that when people can hear that alternate viewpoint in as many places as they can, as forcefully as they can, it gets them excited,” Martin said.
“I think that a lot of people, honestly, kind of looked at the Jubilee [broadcast] almost like a sporting event. It was like a sport. And so you got your side, and they got theirs, and so our side happened to win the day.”
He said: “Whenever people see that, it gets them excited. So if I had to give some advice to national Democrats, I would say to do more of that as you can. And there’s nothing wrong with having a little fun while you do it.”
Martin already had a level of fame before this month. He hosts nightly live streams on his TikTok, where he has nearly a million followers debating, and frequently humbling, Republicans. He cuts the best clips and reposts them on TikTok and Instagram, where he has more than 750,000 followers. He frequently notes in his captions that he has put “belt to” a peach emoji. The peach emoji is commonly used to depict a human bottom.
Martin became involved in politics at the University of Houston, working on voting reform in Texas, where he met Sheila Jackson Lee, the late Texas congresswoman who spent nearly 30 years in the House of Representatives. Jackson Lee became a mentor, and Martin ran to represent her district, Texas’s 18th, in 2025. He didn’t win, but isn’t downbeat.
“It was a great campaign, ran very hard, didn’t win the campaign, but definitely learned a lot. And I think that a lot of the ideas we put forward got a chance to be advanced, and I’m proud of that,” he said.
For years, it was easy to feel that standing up to Republican excess was the preserve of the progressive wing of the party. The likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders have led the criticism of the Republican party, drawing thousands to their Fighting Oligarchy tour last year.
Martin doesn’t necessarily see himself as part of that political grouping. He’s an “Isaiah Martin Democrat”, he said: pushed to name politicians he admires, he named more centrist characters, including Barack Obama, Jon Ossoff, the Georgia senator, and Angela Alsobrooks, the Maryland senator.
Unlike most Democrats, however, he has shown he’s capable of galvanizing the Democratic party, at a time when few people see it as a dynamic, zappy institution. For now, he hopes to turn that energy into the midterm elections. He was the keynote speaker at a Utah Democrats event late last year, and plans to travel to different states to campaign on behalf of Democrats in the midterm elections.
Will he run for office again?
“I don’t know where the future is going to take me,” Martin said.
“It’s just going to be a day-by-day, month-by-month, year-by-year thing. But I guess if I just had to say one thing, it’s that I want to be able to have a really strong voice, to be able to make change in this country, and whether that’s in office or not, I just really want to be at the table to help make this country better, and help make lives better for people.”
