2020 Election Tracker

  • Reopen schools narrative spreads across shadowy local news sites
    Americans are divided about reopening schools this fall and polls show that this disagreement falls along party lines with Republicans more in favor of children returning to schools. Which is why it wasn’t surprising when we found a pro-school reopening narrative popping up this summer on a large network of local and business news websites
  • How news media are setting the 2020 election agenda: Chasing daily controversies, often burying policy
    It’s a paradox of examining political coverage. Are news media just reporting what the political candidates are talking about? Or does political journalism really set the agenda by selecting stories around specific news items, scandals and issues du jour? Our topic analysis of ~10,000 news articles on the 2020 Democratic candidates, published between March and
  • Facebook continues to run political ads with misinformation
    Facebook claims it has enacted measures to stem the spread of misinformation on its platform since the 2016 election. But the platform seems to be applying a different set of standards to politicians. Earlier this month, Elizabeth Warren’s campaign released an ad on Facebook falsely claiming that Mark Zuckerberg had endorsed Donald Trump for re-election
  • Even before Ukraine news, Joe Biden was the 2020 candidate with the most media coverage
    Former Vice President Joe Biden has dominated the mainstream media’s coverage in the last month, even before the whistleblower’s complaint was reported in The Washington Post, prior to the Wall Street Journal suggesting that President Donald Trump urged the Ukranian President to work with personal Attorney Rudy Giuliani, and before the White House released the
  • Pete Buttigieg is flooding Iowa and New Hampshire with Facebook ads about his climate plan
    The 2020 candidates are pouring money into online political ads and Facebook seems to be the platform of choice, with the 19 current Democratic candidates spending $32 million so far this year. Climate change has, of course, been a hot topic this election – CNN even dedicated a day-long town hall to the topic –