I’m Zeke, a doctor, a Pennsylvanian and unapologetic supporter of Democratic values. You might have seen me on social media working my ass off for Democrats and meeting some pretty amazing people along the way - like President Barack Obama and Governor Josh Shapiro.

For years, I’ve knocked thousands of doors all over Pennsylvania and poured my heart and soul into supporting candidates and causes that make a difference—from local school board races to national elections. The personal is political, and I take every election in Pennsylvania personally.

Where the mainstream media has failed you, I will give you truth and independence. You’ll hear from Democratic leaders, candidates, and change-makers who are working to improve the health of the Commonwealth, and it won’t be boring as hell.

No matter where you are, I’ll meet you with hope and a plan to make your community better one day at a time. Welcome to the Zekely Podcast. Let’s talk Pennsylvania.

All right, welcome back. Well, if you're on Spotify, Apple, watching this on YouTube or any other streaming platform, I just wanted to ask you a favor. If you could please rate my podcast, five stars would be great. Leave a comment as well. I was given some great advice by Alex Pearlman who I had on here as a guest, Perlmania 500, as most people know him on social media, to ask people more often to rate my podcast.

because the more ratings I get, the more reach I can have. And I want to make sure that every Pennsylvanian has a possibility to listen and see The Zekely Podcast. So please, if you have a chance, rate my podcast no matter what platform you are streaming on.

nonstop negativity campaign. And 52 episodes later,

I wanted to take some time to review what's been accomplished, reflect on it, and talk about the future.

⁓ I've had 59 guests because some of the episodes have had multiple guests. What all of the guests had in common was they were all residents of Pennsylvania and all of them were supporters of Democrats. Some of them were independents, but they all voted for Democrats or support Democrats in some fashion. Some of the people I interviewed were members of Democratic committees. had a communications director, chairs of various committees across Pennsylvania. I had democratic organizations such as FUBAR PAC.

Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania and Defense of Democracy. I had candidates running for office. had people running for sheriffs, judges, commissioners, school boards, county executives, district attorneys, Congress, and even some mayors. I had the regional director of the PA Young Democrats. I had the chair of the PA High School Democrats. I had a director of a food bank, a comedian and social media star.

school board members, state reps, state senators, a congresswoman, a reporter, an executive director and chair of the P.A. Dems, a prothonotary, a county controller, and I even had state Supreme Court justices. I had so many amazing guests, all different genders, races, and ideologies, but they were all Democrats at the core. So I'm very proud of that list and more to come.

on Pennsylvania's Superior Court. She had 1,375 views. And these are just humble numbers. This is my first year as a podcast. I think it's great. So those are some data points for you. In terms of geography, 94 % of my listeners are from America. 1.3 % are from Singapore, 1.1 % from the UK, 0.6 % from Turkey, 0.4 % from Canada, hey Canada, 0.4 % from India.

0.2 % from Russia and 0.2 % from Brazil. So those are some of the locations people download my podcast from. When I launched my podcast in January of this year, 344 people downloaded the first month's episodes. My lowest download month was in June with 244 downloads, and my highest was unsurprisingly in October of this year leading up to the November 4th election with 833 total downloads. So for the year,

I've averaged 98 downloads per week, 14 downloads per day, and a total of, as of recording this, 4,982 downloads since inception. Now, what does this all mean? So if you believe Google, hitting 27 to 30 downloads in the first week puts you in the top 50 % of podcasts in the

while 100 to 120 downloads is top 25%, 500 plus downloads a week is top 10 % and the top 1 % of podcasts in the world exceed 4,000 downloads per week. So as I said before, I'm averaging about 98 downloads per week. So that puts me on the cusp of the top 25 % podcasts in the world. So I guess that's pretty cool. I don't know. Again, you know, my goal was never to burn brightly and fizzle out. I wanted to start this podcast to reach as many Pennsylvania as possible.

positive democratic messaging,

politicians accessible, less mysterious, and show that both sides are not the same when it comes to making government work for most people. So obviously it would be great for the podcast to grow, but I'm happy to do it organically. I haven't spent any money on advertising. I don't have any sponsors. And I really hope to never let this platform get to my head because there's just too much at

mean as long as I stay true to my oath that I took as a doctor to do no harm and never lose my capacity for empathy, I think I'll be able to stay on

talk about some of the best and challenging parts of podcasting for me. One of the challenging parts of podcasting would have to be generating the questions and the game for the guests. I try to have between 25 and 30 prompts per interview. Some of them are the same for state reps, but for some people I had to start from scratch, like when I had a prothogatory or I had a reporter. I wanted to make it new and engaging for my guests and not do the same thing over and over again.

And I know that in an hour, I'll probably ask 25 to 30 questions, but I only get 35 to 45 minutes of usable content. So we talked for much longer than you actually hear on the actual episode. Editing is probably the most challenging part, not necessarily because it's difficult, but because of how time consuming it is. Every episode takes between one and three hours to record, and another five to six hours of editing.

The best parts have been the interviews themselves for me. Every time I'm feeling down about what's happening in politics, I interview someone who's waking up every day and trying to make Pennsylvania better. And it really helps keep me focused on the task at hand to keep repairing the world.

Many of my guests told me their experience was much different than what they expected, but in a good way. I think a lot of people thought they'd be just rattling off facts and statistics, but I think most people had a great time.

and really enjoyed playing my corny games or trivia. A goal of mine was to humanize politicians and their roles because that's exactly what they are. They have stress like I do, family problems, health problems, bills to pay, car trouble, hobbies, talents, and I wanted to showcase all of that. I think the hardest thing for my guests has been the timing of the recordings. I generally record at 9 p.m. at night because again, I work a full-time job and I'm raising kids.

And that's just the window that works for me. And so I'm really appreciative to all the guests who work long days and then come down and record with me. So I really do appreciate that.

In terms of messages on my website, thezekelypodcast.com, I haven't received a lot, overall the feedback has been pretty positive. I would love to receive more. So please head over to thezekelypodcast.com. Let me know what you like about the podcast or the website. I love my web designer, Layton from Apex Atlanta. He's wonderful. I'll make sure to promote his website because he does great work for me. We interface a lot updating the website. And I wanted that to be there just in case, you know,

TikTok goes down or Instagram doesn't do what I want it to do. I wanted there to be a free accessible place to get the podcast for Pennsylvanians. And so as long as I can do that, I'm going to.

In terms of the biggest flop of the podcast so far, it wasn't even the podcast itself, it was adjacent to the podcast on my website, thezekelypodcast.com. I had this bright idea that I wanted to have a scavenger hunt on my podcast website, where I would have Easter eggs, words that would spell out every election is the most important election. And maybe you participated in the scavenger hunt or maybe you never heard of it. Basically you would hover over a word.

or click on it and then the Zekely podcast logo would come up and then you would basically collect all the words across the website. You would submit every election is the most important election to me along with proof that you were a registered voter in Pennsylvania and you would be put in a qualifier to win $300 in prizes which included some merchandise, a thezekelypodcast.com hoodie. Well, I didn't do any formal advertising. I didn't put a dime into taking out ads or anything. I just

did it organically on my social media posts. And I think at the end of the day, under 10 people I think actually participated in it. And one person did win all the prizes. But I was a little disappointed, not gonna lie. I spent a lot of time working with Layton, my web designer, to develop this scavenger hunt. And I thought it would take off. And who wouldn't want to win $300 on prizes? was like gift cards to various restaurants and again, some Zekely podcast merch, but.

I'm sure if I would have probably advertised it, might have done a lot better, but I just wasn't in the space to do it. So that was probably a pretty big flop.

But you know, maybe in the future I'll try it again. Who knows? Stay tuned for another Zekely podcast.com scavenger hunt. You never know.

So best and worst guests. Well, there is no worst guest on the Zekely podcast. They're all Democrats, supporters of Democrats, so they're all great to me. But I did vibe really nicely with Judge Brandon Neuman I had a great time with Brandon. He at the time was a judge, but running for the Superior Court in Pennsylvania, and he did win. But it really struck me

about a question that I asked him in terms of what was the hardest part of being a judge. And he said the loneliness. And I did not take into account how isolating being a judge can be. You you're in a position of power. You can't talk about the cases that you're overseeing. And I think that there's this mystique about being a judge. And people are kind of nervous when they act around judges. So there are layers of isolation in his position. And I think he really had a great time just hanging out with me and.

and playing the games that I had for him and talking. I definitely want to have him back on again someday. But that was just a really enjoyable episode. And I was so happy I got to meet him in person when he came through Montgomery County during his election cycle. And yeah, I just really had a great time with Brandon. But I have to say I was most awestruck when I had all three state Supreme Court justices on my podcast when they were running for retention. That was crazy. I never in a million years thought that I would have

well one, let alone three state Supreme Court justices to interview. It was a very powerful episode for me and I really hope to showcase the importance of why we need to retain democratically endorsed judges in Pennsylvania. So I have a lot more guests coming, so stay tuned.

about another terrible executive order, I did a podcast episode and it really reinvigorated me to interface with people at all levels of Pennsylvania government to know that there were people waking up every day and trying to make Pennsylvania better. And I know the mainstream media is failing us every day. They're putting out terrible messaging. They don't interview people who tell the truth.

And they certainly don't show local politics, the things that affect you every day and how important it is to focus on those local elections every year. So I really feel like this has helped me stay focused and realize that all is not lost. I never lost

exceedingly well in the midterms to reelect Governor Josh Shapiro and just hopefully take back Congress. So yeah, this podcast has been very therapeutic for me, aside from the therapist I do go to, and I talk about the podcast a lot. I think mental health is very important. But this definitely helped channel my energy and my despair. I mean, I did a ton of door knocking last year, thousands of doors.

I really wanted to make a difference. I still do knock doors, but I would say I want to use this podcast as a major medium to reach people who maybe I couldn't reach knocking the doors and teach them about Pennsylvania politics and teach them how amazing Democrats are.

so many people to thank for the existence of the Zekely podcast. And first and foremost, I have to thank my wife, Jess. Jess, you are amazing. I could not do this without

You keep my head on straight. You give me grace. You're an amazing editor. And you allow me to go into the basement at least once a week to record ⁓ episodes after 9 p.m.

and come up late and watch the kids. And I just, couldn't do it without you. And I'm just, I'm grateful we're on the same team. I really, really am. and we should all be grateful that she is on the Democratic side because she is a force to reckon with. I'm also extremely grateful for the guests that come on this show. Thank you for again, recording with me late at night. I'm grateful for my web designer, Layton.

at Apex Atlanta, you've done an amazing job taking all my emails and being accessible and updating the website and indexing everything. I didn't know what SEO stood for until I met you. Search engine optimization, it's a tongue twister. Yeah, you're amazing, thank you so much. And obviously all of you, all the listeners and the viewers who have given me feedback and tell me that I've made a difference and that you showed up to vote because you saw one of my clips.

or you said you had a hard time finding out information about candidates until you found my podcast in Pennsylvania. It's great. I mean, I love the feedback. Again, I did do this for a number of reasons. And of course, I want to educate people and meet people where they are. And as long as people enjoy it, I'll keep doing it.

if you get off the sidelines, if you make a plan to vote, if you talk about Democrats and educate people in your own time, why it's so important to show up at the polls, and that we can make incremental change as long as we show up in every election every year. And again, in Pennsylvania, there are two elections every year, a primary and a general election. If you can tap into your local Democratic committee, you can get involved.

and on my website at the thezekelyPodcast.com, there is a way to search for your local democratic committee and hopefully get plugged in because again, we can't do this in a vacuum. We just have to look for the helpers and stick together. And I hope that as my podcast has shown, there are good people everywhere.

Well, I'm booked out till February for guests, which is amazing. I'm hoping that episodes should be coming out at Zekely. And until then, you know, please, please, please go and rate my podcast. Leave a comment. Five stars would be great. Please give me some feedback through

Thank you so much for joining me here on the Zekely Podcast. Stay hopeful and get involved. And until next time, let's keep building a stronger Pennsylvania together.