Breaking Sen. Strom Thurmond’s record for the longest Senate speech in history was just one of the things Sen. Cory Booker accomplished on Tuesday.

Portions of his 25-hour-and-five-minute speech, which began Monday evening and ended Tuesday night, were viewed by millions of Americans, either on social media, on evening newscasts, at a time when President Trump has dominated headlines.

On his Senate website, the New Jersey Democrat touted some early numbers that the speech generated, including more than 350 million likes on the senator’s TikTok livestream of the speech, more than 28,000 supportive voicemails on his main office line that were left as he spoke and a livestream audience that grew to more 300,000 viewers across his own platforms.

The speech was also live-streamed on a number of other channels, including C-SPAN and the Associated Press, and led many national newscasts. For much of Tuesday, and especially as he drew closer to breaking the record set by Thurmond, a South Carolina Democrat, Booker became a trending topic on social media platforms like TikTok, BlueSky and X, whose former owner, Elon Musk, Booker criticized throughout the speech.

With nationwide protests growing against Trump and Musk, Booker acknowledged the frustrations expressed by many Americans that his party has not done enough to counter the new administration.

“I confess that I have been imperfect. I confess that I’ve been inadequate to the moment. I confess that the Democratic Party has made terrible mistakes that gave a lane to this demagogue,” Booker said. “I confess we all must look in the mirror and say ‘We will do better.’”

He then proceeded to read aloud the stories of those who say Trump’s cuts to government programs have hurt their lives in an attempt to reframe the debate over making government more efficient.

Booker’s Democratic colleagues, many of whom joined him on the Senate floor during the speech, seemed to understand that history could look back on the moment as significant.

“He made the Senate relevant, and he captured the moment where people were focused on the why we have to push back and stand up against Trump, as opposed to the tactical day-to-day slog,” Democratic Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont told NBC News. “It was very inspirational.”

While it is still too early to judge whether Booker’s speech will result in lasting changes to the political landscape, some observers were not hesitant to predict that it would.

“I want to emphasize what Cory Booker did over the last 24 hours may have changed the course of political history,” longtime Republican pollster Frank Luntz told NewsNation, adding, “That speech puts Cory Booker as one of the leaders for the Democratic Party for 2028.”

On Fox News Business, host Maria Bartiromo had a decidedly different take. “What was that that Cory Booker was doing? Is he just looking for attention? Who is going to sit there listening to him for 25 hours?” she asked Sen. Ashley Moody, a Florida Republican.

“Well, basically, that was just an extended floor speech that accomplished nothing,” Moody responded.

But in the comment section of one of the YouTube livestreams of Booker’s speech, some viewers seemed moved.

“From Wisconsin…thank you Sen Booker! You have inspired a depressed and anxious 69 year old woman. I didn’t think it was possible!” a user identified as @4Earth21 wrote.

“Thank you for having a backbone, for providing some shred of hope for our country, and proving that real passion and care still exists in our federal government,” user Emilee Rose wrote.

Whether Luntz’s prediction is borne out, Booker’s performance was significant if only in that the longest speech in Senate history is now one in which a considerable portion was devoted to promoting civil rights.

During his filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, Thurmond declared: “Negroes are voting in large numbers. Of course they are not so well qualified to vote as are the white people.”

If nothing else, Booker stripped Thurmond of the distinction his speech had held for 68 years.

“To be candid, Strom Thurmond’s record always kind of just really irked me,” Booker told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow in an interview after he concluded his speech, “that the longest speech on our great Senate floor was someone who was trying to stop people like me from being in the Senate.”