It’s finally over, and the 2024 presidential campaign made history in at least one ignominious respect: Broadcast evening news coverage of the candidates was the most wildly imbalanced in history, favoring Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris over former Republican President Donald Trump by the greatest margin ever recorded.

The final Media Research Center (MRC) study released last week showed evaluative coverage of Harris — excluding “horse race” assessments — on ABC, CBS and NBC was 78% positive vs. 22% negative. For Trump, those numbers were flipped: just 15% positive press, vs. 85% negative coverage. Subtracting Trump’s positive press from Harris’s, the advantage to the Democratic nominee was 63 points, the greatest in the modern media age. [See methodology explanation at the end of this article.]

The previous worst display of imbalanced campaign coverage came just four years ago. In 2020, the MRC found former Vice President Joe Biden basked in 66% positive network coverage, vs. just 8% positive coverage for then-President Trump, a 58-point imbalance in favor of the Democrats. (That year’s coverage was also the most negative for any presidential nominee, even worse than what Trump received in 2016 and this year.)

While the MRC’s presidential campaign studies only reach back to 2016, similar studies were conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) from 1988 through 2008. Using a similar methodology, they found the networks tipped heavily in favor of Illinois Senator Barack Obama in 2008 (68% positive press), vs. just 33% positive for Arizona Senator John McCain, a Democratic advantage of 35 points.

“The media has been really, really biased this campaign, I think,” even MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough admitted in the waning days of that year’s campaign.

 

Rounding out the top five worst/most biased campaigns, based on CMPA’s research: in 1992, when the networks championed Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton (52% positive press) against incumbent President George H. W. Bush (29%, for a gap of 23 points); and 2004, when Massachusetts Senator John Kerry enjoyed 59% positive coverage, compared to just 37% positive for President George W. Bush, a 22 point gap in favor of the Democrats.

None of this escaped notice at the time. “Any fair, objective reading of the coverage of 1992 is going to conclude there was very, very substantial bias in the Democratic direction,” political scientist Larry Sabato — no conservative — told the Boston Globe in early 1993.

Other years, the gap in media coverage also favored Democrats, just not by as much. In 1996, CMPA’s numbers showed incumbent President Bill Clinton received 50% positive coverage, vs. just 33% positive for Republican Senator Bob Dole, a gap of 17 points. In 2016, the Media Research Center found a gap of 12 points favoring former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (21% positive press) vs. Trump (just 9% positive).

In 2000, CMPA found nearly equal bad press for the candidates, but with a slight advantage for Democratic Vice President Al Gore (40% positive) vs. Texas Governor George Bush (37%, for a gap of three points).

Journalists should not be proud that their coverage has invariably tipped to the Democrats in presidential elections since 1992. They should be distressed that this partisan tilt has grown much wider over the years. And it is absolutely scandalous that this year’s election — the closest ever in pre-election polls — should have the most preposterously lopsided coverage of all.

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METHODOLOGY: The MRC studies each determined the spin of news coverage by tallying all explicitly evaluative statements about each candidate from either reporters, anchors or non-partisan sources such as experts or voters. Evaluations from partisan sources, as well as neutral statements, were not included, nor were statements about their prospects in the campaign horse race (i.e., standings in the polls, chances to win, etc.).

CMPA explained its methodology thusly: “Our analysis of good and bad press was based strictly on the opinions expressed by any independent observers quoted in the story, or on the stated opinions of the reporters themselves. We coded each comment separately, identifying the source, target, and the direction of the evaluation.” Disclosure: I worked on CMPA’s election studies in 1992 and 1996.