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Footballguy
What’s the best predictor of which candidate will win the presidential nomination? The winner of the Iowa caucus? The winner of the New Hampshire primary?
Actually neither is as good an indicator as the winner of what political scientists call “the invisible primary”—the period before a single primary or caucus vote is cast. A fast start in Iowa or New Hampshire is important. A candidate with a poor showing in both states is in trouble. Voters aren’t interested, donors aren’t interested, and reporters aren’t interested in a candidate who finishes at the back of the pack. Yet, more often than not, the winner in Iowa has lost in New Hampshire. Since 1980, of the twelve open nominating races—those without an incumbent president seeking reelection—only Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004 won both contests. In 1992, the eventual Democratic nominee, Bill Clinton, lost both, though he ran well enough in the two states to be seen as a viable candidate.
Of all the indicators of success in the invisible primary, media exposure is arguably the most important.
So, although a degree of success in Iowa and New Hampshire is important, neither contest by itself is predictive of the nominee. The better indicator of who will win the nomination is how well the candidates position themselves in the year leading up to the Iowa caucus. This period—“the invisible primary”—is when the candidates try to put in place the ingredients of a winning campaign.
Of all the indicators of success in the invisible primary, media exposure is arguably the most important. Media exposure is essential if a candidate is to rise in the polls. Absent a high poll standing, or upward momentum, it’s difficult for a candidate to raise money, win endorsements, or even secure a spot in the pre-primary debates.
Some political scientists offer a different assessment of the invisible primary, arguing that high-level endorsements are the key to early success.[1] That’s been true in some cases, but endorsements tend to be a trailing indicator, the result of a calculated judgment by top party leaders of a candidate’s viability. Other analysts have placed money at the top.[2] Money is clearly important but its real value comes later in the process, when the campaign moves to Super Tuesday and the other multi-state contests where ad buys and field organization become critical.
In the early going, nothing is closer to pure gold than favorable free media exposure. It can boost a candidate’s poll standing and access to money and endorsements. Above all, it bestows credibility. New York Times columnist Russell Baker aptly described the press as the “Great Mentioner.”[3] The nominating campaigns of candidates who are ignored by the media are almost certainly futile, while the campaigns of those who receive close attention get a boost. Ever since 1972, when the nominating process was taken out of the hands of party bosses and given over to the voters in state primaries and caucuses, the press has performed the party’s traditional role of screening potential presidential nominees—deciding which ones are worthy of the voters’ attention. As Theodore H. White wrote in The Making of the President, 1972, “The power of the press is a primordial one. It determines what people will think and talk about—an authority that in other nations is reserved for tyrants, priests, parties, and mandarins.”[4]
Much has been written about the role that free media played in propelling Donald Trump to the Republican nomination. His level of news coverage during the invisible primary easily outpaced that of his Republican rivals. “What I know,” Ted Cruz complained, “is that the media was involved in a lovefest, giving Donald Trump two billion dollars in free media.”[5]
Yet, the media have always doled out their coverage in uneven amounts. In the year leading up to the 2012 election, Mitt Romney received substantially more attention than any of his Republican rivals. In the six-month period before the Iowa caucuses, for instance, Romney got 30 percent more coverage than Newt Gingrich and eight times that of Rick Santorum.[6]
What was different about the 2016 race is that neither of the two basic indicators of news coverage would have predicted Trump’s heavy coverage. Poll standing is one of these indicators. Journalists regard candidates at the top of the polls as more newsworthy than those in the back of the pack, and invariably give them more coverage. It’s a Catch-22 for a candidate who’s deep in the pack. Trailing badly in the polls, a candidate has trouble getting the media’s attention. But without coverage, the candidate has difficulty moving up in the polls. That was Santorum’s problem in 2012. Romney was at or near the top of the polls throughout the invisible primary, buoyed by his press coverage, while Santorum sat near the bottom. A second basic indicator of press coverage during the invisible primary is the ability to raise money, which journalists view as a sign that a candidate has staying power. In the 2008 Democratic nominating contest, for example, Barack Obama was far back in the early polls but raised an astonishing $26 million in small donations in the first quarter of 2007. His news coverage immediately increased, boosting both his poll standing and his fundraising efforts. By the time the Iowa caucus rolled around, Obama had raised $102 million dollars, roughly what Hillary Clinton was able to raise in the pre-primary period.[7]
Neither of these indicators, however, explains Trump’s coverage. When his news coverage began to shoot up, he was not high in the trial-heat polls and had raised almost no money. Upon entering the race, he stood much taller in the news than he stood in the polls.[8] By the end of the invisible primary, he was high enough in the polls to get the coverage expected of a frontrunner. But he was lifted to that height by an unprecedented amount of free media.
So what explains the news media’s early fascination with Trump? The answer is that journalists were behaving in their normal way. Although journalists play a political brokering role in presidential primaries, their decisions are driven by news values rather than political values. Journalists are attracted to the new, the unusual, the sensational—the type of story material that will catch and hold an audience’s attention. Trump fit that need as no other candidate in recent memory. Trump is arguably the first bona fide media-created presidential nominee. Although he subsequently tapped a political nerve, journalists fueled his launch.
Journalists seemed unmindful that they and not the electorate were Trump’s first audience. Trump exploited their lust for riveting stories. He didn’t have any other option. He had no constituency base and no claim to presidential credentials. If Trump had possessed them, his strategy could have been political suicide, which is what the press predicted as they showcased his tirades. Trump couldn’t compete with the likes of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or Jeb Bush on the basis of his political standing or following. The politics of outrage was his edge, and the press became his dependable if unwitting ally.
Although he subsequently tapped a political nerve, journalists fueled [Trump’s] launch.
Trump’s coverage was worth millions in free exposure. Figure 1 shows, for the eight U.S. news outlets in our study, the ad-equivalent dollar estimates for the top Republican contenders for the period after Trump announced his candidacy. It assumes that time on television news or space in a newspaper has the dollar equivalent of what would be required to buy that amount of advertising time or space in the same outlet. It includes only the news coverage that was positive or neutral in tone. Positive coverage is always “good news” for a political candidate, but so, too, is neutral coverage in the pre-primary period because it elevates the candidate’s profile.
By our estimate, Trump’s coverage in the eight news outlets in our study was worth roughly $55 million. Trump reaped $16 million in ad-equivalent space in The New York Times alone, which was more than he spent on actual ad buys in all media during all of 2015. In our eight outlets, the ad-equivalent value of Trump’s coverage was more than one-and-a-half times the ad-equivalent value of Bush, Rubio, and Cruz’s coverage, more than twice that of Carson’s, and more than three times that of Kasich’s. Moreover, our analysis greatly underestimates the ad-equivalent value of Trump’s exposure in that it’s based on only eight media outlets, whereas the whole of the media world was highlighting his candidacy. Senator Cruz might well be correct in claiming that Trump’s media coverage was worth the equivalent of $2 billion in ad buys.
When critics have accused journalists of fueling the Trump bandwagon, members of the media have offered two denials. One is that they were in watchdog mode, that Trump’s coverage was largely negative, that the “bad news” outpaced the “good news.” The second rebuttal is that the media’s role in Trump’s ascent was the work of the cable networks—that cable was “all Trump, all the time” whereas the traditional press held back.
Neither of these claims is supported by the evidence. Figure 2 shows the news balance in Trump’s coverage during the invisible primary. As can be seen, Trump’s coverage was favorable in all of the news outlets we studied. There were differences from one outlet to the next but the range was relatively small, from a low of 63 percent positive or neutral in The New York Times to a high of 74 percent positive or neutral in USA Today. Across all the outlets, Trump’s coverage was roughly two-to-one favorable.
Why was Trump’s coverage so favorable? Why did the watchdog press say so many positive things about Trump’s candidacy? The reason inheres in journalists’ tendency to build their narratives around the candidates’ positions in the race. This horserace focus leads them into four storylines: a candidate is “leading,” “trailing,” “gaining ground,” or “losing ground.” Of the four storylines, the most predictably positive one is that of the “gaining ground” candidate, particularly when that candidate is emerging from the back of the pack. It’s a story of growing momentum, rising poll numbers, and ever larger crowds. The storyline invariably includes negative elements, typically around the tactics that the candidate is employing in the surge to the top. But the overall media portrayal of a “gaining ground” candidate is a positive one.
The components of Trump’s coverage are shown in Figure 3. Although his incendiary remarks on immigrants and other issues brought him the biggest headlines, they were the smaller part of his coverage. Only 12 percent of Trump’s coverage addressed his issue stands and political beliefs. Most of what was reported about Trump was in the context of the horserace and campaign activity, and was framed around his move to the top, a positive storyline that was uninterrupted except for a brief drop in the polls following remarks that he would require all Muslims in the United States to register with the federal government.[9] Such coverage accounted for 56 percent of Trump’s coverage and, of it, 79 percent was favorable in tone. News references to Trump’s poll standing ran nine-to-one in his favor.[10]
Moreover, not everything that was said about Trump’s personal characteristics and issue positions was negative in tone. Over 40 percent of it was positive in tone, often in the form of statements by voters who agreed with his policy positions or liked his personal style. A Washington Post piece, for example, quoted a Trump supporter as saying, “When Trump talks, it may not be presented in a pristine, PC way, but . . . [h]e’s saying what needs to be said.”[11] Immigration was the issue that worked most clearly in Trump’s favor. Although news coverage of his position included criticisms, it was accompanied by statements of solidarity from Republicans and was framed as the issue that was propelling him upward in the polls.[12]
What about the claim that Trump’s rise was a cable-induced phenomenon—that the traditional press resisted the Trump boom? That claim, like the other one, is not backed by the evidence. Trump was big news in every outlet. From the time of his announcement of candidacy until the end of 2015, he dominated the Republican coverage. His share of the leading contenders’ coverage, summed across the news outlets we studied is shown in Figure 4. Trump received a full third of the coverage. His coverage was nearly twice that of the next most heavily covered Republican candidate, Jeb Bush. And he received two-and-a-half times the news attention afforded Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, or Ted Cruz, and five times that given John Kasich. Moreover, Trump’s share did not differ greatly from one news outlet to the next. He was by far the most heavily covered Republican candidate in each of the eight news outlets in our study.[13]
Although Trump was the primary beneficiary of the press’s tendency to portray a “gaining ground” candidate favorably, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina had a brief taste of it. Fiorina’s burst of coverage occurred when she jumped in the polls after a much lauded debate performance in which she vividly described an undercover video that allegedly showed Planned Parenthood employees harvesting tissue from a still living fetus.[14] Her news coverage doubled from its previous level but the poll surge was as fleeting as her time in the media spotlight. As she slipped in the polls, she was thrust into a storyline that’s predictably unfavorable—the story of a candidate who’s “losing ground.” Speculation about the reason for the fall drives the story, and there’s nothing positive in a narrative of that type. The decline in the candidate’s fortunes, the ostensible cause of the decline, and the candidate’s desperate effort to reverse the decline are the chief ingredients of the “losing ground” narrative. In Fiorina’s case, journalists pointed to problems with her campaign organization, linking them to management issues that surfaced during her unsuccessful 2010 Senate bid and her rocky stint as Hewlett-Packard’s chief executive. Said CNN, “Her campaign and the super PAC supporting her . . . have struggled to craft a counter narrative to the criticism.”[15]
No candidate filled the “losing ground” storyline more snugly than did Jeb Bush. Early in 2015, he had a large lead in the polls and enjoyed corresponding favorable coverage. As his support declined, however, so did the tone of his coverage. In the first half of 2015, his coverage hovered in positive territory but, in the second half, trended downward. By December, the news of Bush was 70 percent negative—by far the most negative coverage afforded any major Republican contender at any point in the invisible primary.[16] Even his deportment became a storyline. “Mr. Bush does not seem to be radiating much joy these days,” said The New York Times in an article accompanied by a photo of a dour-looking Bush. “He said last year that he would run for president only if he could do so with a sunny spirit, but Mr. Trump, the surprise leader in the polls, has turned this summer into a miserable one for Mr. Bush.”[17]
Several Republican candidates, including Lindsey Graham, Rick Perry, and George Pataki, languished in the near-hell storyline of “likely loser.” Any such candidate in a large field of contenders is literally and figuratively damned. As Media Tenor’s Racheline Maltese puts it, “Candidates who are off the media agenda eventually find themselves out of the election.”[18] Seen to lack newsworthiness, they are unable to get the coverage they need to move up in the race. And when they are mentioned, they are portrayed as losers, a storyline that requires reporters to explain why. All candidates have their weaknesses but, in the case of “likely losers,” the weaknesses come to the fore. After Perry complained about not being included in the first prime-time presidential debate, the Los Angeles Times quoted Trump as saying that Perry needed to take “an IQ test” before being allowed on the debate stage, a reference accompanied by a description of Perry’s mental meltdown during a 2012 Republican debate.[19]
Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio had the good fortune of at least being on the news media’s grid. They received substantially more press attention than the virtually invisible contenders at the back of pack and twice that of John Kasich. Rubio’s poll numbers stayed within the range of 5-10 percent throughout nearly the whole of 2015, good enough to mark him as a potential nominee. At no time, however, did Rubio enjoy the quick jump in the polls that would have made journalists sit up and pay close attention. Cruz’s poll standing and news coverage were similar to Rubio’s for most of 2015. In the last two months, however, Cruz’s poll numbers began trending upward, as did his news coverage. As he rose in the polls, his coverage became more favorable, and he ended 2015 with the most favorable balance of news for the year of any of the leading Republican contenders.[20] Rubio’s balance was only slightly less favorable.[21] Cruz and Rubio emerged from 2015 with a realistic possibility of winning the Republican nomination. News coverage had helped doom the chances of the other GOP candidates, save for Donald Trump.
Actually neither is as good an indicator as the winner of what political scientists call “the invisible primary”—the period before a single primary or caucus vote is cast. A fast start in Iowa or New Hampshire is important. A candidate with a poor showing in both states is in trouble. Voters aren’t interested, donors aren’t interested, and reporters aren’t interested in a candidate who finishes at the back of the pack. Yet, more often than not, the winner in Iowa has lost in New Hampshire. Since 1980, of the twelve open nominating races—those without an incumbent president seeking reelection—only Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004 won both contests. In 1992, the eventual Democratic nominee, Bill Clinton, lost both, though he ran well enough in the two states to be seen as a viable candidate.
Of all the indicators of success in the invisible primary, media exposure is arguably the most important.
So, although a degree of success in Iowa and New Hampshire is important, neither contest by itself is predictive of the nominee. The better indicator of who will win the nomination is how well the candidates position themselves in the year leading up to the Iowa caucus. This period—“the invisible primary”—is when the candidates try to put in place the ingredients of a winning campaign.
Of all the indicators of success in the invisible primary, media exposure is arguably the most important. Media exposure is essential if a candidate is to rise in the polls. Absent a high poll standing, or upward momentum, it’s difficult for a candidate to raise money, win endorsements, or even secure a spot in the pre-primary debates.
Some political scientists offer a different assessment of the invisible primary, arguing that high-level endorsements are the key to early success.[1] That’s been true in some cases, but endorsements tend to be a trailing indicator, the result of a calculated judgment by top party leaders of a candidate’s viability. Other analysts have placed money at the top.[2] Money is clearly important but its real value comes later in the process, when the campaign moves to Super Tuesday and the other multi-state contests where ad buys and field organization become critical.
In the early going, nothing is closer to pure gold than favorable free media exposure. It can boost a candidate’s poll standing and access to money and endorsements. Above all, it bestows credibility. New York Times columnist Russell Baker aptly described the press as the “Great Mentioner.”[3] The nominating campaigns of candidates who are ignored by the media are almost certainly futile, while the campaigns of those who receive close attention get a boost. Ever since 1972, when the nominating process was taken out of the hands of party bosses and given over to the voters in state primaries and caucuses, the press has performed the party’s traditional role of screening potential presidential nominees—deciding which ones are worthy of the voters’ attention. As Theodore H. White wrote in The Making of the President, 1972, “The power of the press is a primordial one. It determines what people will think and talk about—an authority that in other nations is reserved for tyrants, priests, parties, and mandarins.”[4]
Much has been written about the role that free media played in propelling Donald Trump to the Republican nomination. His level of news coverage during the invisible primary easily outpaced that of his Republican rivals. “What I know,” Ted Cruz complained, “is that the media was involved in a lovefest, giving Donald Trump two billion dollars in free media.”[5]
Yet, the media have always doled out their coverage in uneven amounts. In the year leading up to the 2012 election, Mitt Romney received substantially more attention than any of his Republican rivals. In the six-month period before the Iowa caucuses, for instance, Romney got 30 percent more coverage than Newt Gingrich and eight times that of Rick Santorum.[6]
What was different about the 2016 race is that neither of the two basic indicators of news coverage would have predicted Trump’s heavy coverage. Poll standing is one of these indicators. Journalists regard candidates at the top of the polls as more newsworthy than those in the back of the pack, and invariably give them more coverage. It’s a Catch-22 for a candidate who’s deep in the pack. Trailing badly in the polls, a candidate has trouble getting the media’s attention. But without coverage, the candidate has difficulty moving up in the polls. That was Santorum’s problem in 2012. Romney was at or near the top of the polls throughout the invisible primary, buoyed by his press coverage, while Santorum sat near the bottom. A second basic indicator of press coverage during the invisible primary is the ability to raise money, which journalists view as a sign that a candidate has staying power. In the 2008 Democratic nominating contest, for example, Barack Obama was far back in the early polls but raised an astonishing $26 million in small donations in the first quarter of 2007. His news coverage immediately increased, boosting both his poll standing and his fundraising efforts. By the time the Iowa caucus rolled around, Obama had raised $102 million dollars, roughly what Hillary Clinton was able to raise in the pre-primary period.[7]
Neither of these indicators, however, explains Trump’s coverage. When his news coverage began to shoot up, he was not high in the trial-heat polls and had raised almost no money. Upon entering the race, he stood much taller in the news than he stood in the polls.[8] By the end of the invisible primary, he was high enough in the polls to get the coverage expected of a frontrunner. But he was lifted to that height by an unprecedented amount of free media.
So what explains the news media’s early fascination with Trump? The answer is that journalists were behaving in their normal way. Although journalists play a political brokering role in presidential primaries, their decisions are driven by news values rather than political values. Journalists are attracted to the new, the unusual, the sensational—the type of story material that will catch and hold an audience’s attention. Trump fit that need as no other candidate in recent memory. Trump is arguably the first bona fide media-created presidential nominee. Although he subsequently tapped a political nerve, journalists fueled his launch.
Journalists seemed unmindful that they and not the electorate were Trump’s first audience. Trump exploited their lust for riveting stories. He didn’t have any other option. He had no constituency base and no claim to presidential credentials. If Trump had possessed them, his strategy could have been political suicide, which is what the press predicted as they showcased his tirades. Trump couldn’t compete with the likes of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or Jeb Bush on the basis of his political standing or following. The politics of outrage was his edge, and the press became his dependable if unwitting ally.
Although he subsequently tapped a political nerve, journalists fueled [Trump’s] launch.
Trump’s coverage was worth millions in free exposure. Figure 1 shows, for the eight U.S. news outlets in our study, the ad-equivalent dollar estimates for the top Republican contenders for the period after Trump announced his candidacy. It assumes that time on television news or space in a newspaper has the dollar equivalent of what would be required to buy that amount of advertising time or space in the same outlet. It includes only the news coverage that was positive or neutral in tone. Positive coverage is always “good news” for a political candidate, but so, too, is neutral coverage in the pre-primary period because it elevates the candidate’s profile.
By our estimate, Trump’s coverage in the eight news outlets in our study was worth roughly $55 million. Trump reaped $16 million in ad-equivalent space in The New York Times alone, which was more than he spent on actual ad buys in all media during all of 2015. In our eight outlets, the ad-equivalent value of Trump’s coverage was more than one-and-a-half times the ad-equivalent value of Bush, Rubio, and Cruz’s coverage, more than twice that of Carson’s, and more than three times that of Kasich’s. Moreover, our analysis greatly underestimates the ad-equivalent value of Trump’s exposure in that it’s based on only eight media outlets, whereas the whole of the media world was highlighting his candidacy. Senator Cruz might well be correct in claiming that Trump’s media coverage was worth the equivalent of $2 billion in ad buys.
When critics have accused journalists of fueling the Trump bandwagon, members of the media have offered two denials. One is that they were in watchdog mode, that Trump’s coverage was largely negative, that the “bad news” outpaced the “good news.” The second rebuttal is that the media’s role in Trump’s ascent was the work of the cable networks—that cable was “all Trump, all the time” whereas the traditional press held back.
Neither of these claims is supported by the evidence. Figure 2 shows the news balance in Trump’s coverage during the invisible primary. As can be seen, Trump’s coverage was favorable in all of the news outlets we studied. There were differences from one outlet to the next but the range was relatively small, from a low of 63 percent positive or neutral in The New York Times to a high of 74 percent positive or neutral in USA Today. Across all the outlets, Trump’s coverage was roughly two-to-one favorable.
Why was Trump’s coverage so favorable? Why did the watchdog press say so many positive things about Trump’s candidacy? The reason inheres in journalists’ tendency to build their narratives around the candidates’ positions in the race. This horserace focus leads them into four storylines: a candidate is “leading,” “trailing,” “gaining ground,” or “losing ground.” Of the four storylines, the most predictably positive one is that of the “gaining ground” candidate, particularly when that candidate is emerging from the back of the pack. It’s a story of growing momentum, rising poll numbers, and ever larger crowds. The storyline invariably includes negative elements, typically around the tactics that the candidate is employing in the surge to the top. But the overall media portrayal of a “gaining ground” candidate is a positive one.
The components of Trump’s coverage are shown in Figure 3. Although his incendiary remarks on immigrants and other issues brought him the biggest headlines, they were the smaller part of his coverage. Only 12 percent of Trump’s coverage addressed his issue stands and political beliefs. Most of what was reported about Trump was in the context of the horserace and campaign activity, and was framed around his move to the top, a positive storyline that was uninterrupted except for a brief drop in the polls following remarks that he would require all Muslims in the United States to register with the federal government.[9] Such coverage accounted for 56 percent of Trump’s coverage and, of it, 79 percent was favorable in tone. News references to Trump’s poll standing ran nine-to-one in his favor.[10]
Moreover, not everything that was said about Trump’s personal characteristics and issue positions was negative in tone. Over 40 percent of it was positive in tone, often in the form of statements by voters who agreed with his policy positions or liked his personal style. A Washington Post piece, for example, quoted a Trump supporter as saying, “When Trump talks, it may not be presented in a pristine, PC way, but . . . [h]e’s saying what needs to be said.”[11] Immigration was the issue that worked most clearly in Trump’s favor. Although news coverage of his position included criticisms, it was accompanied by statements of solidarity from Republicans and was framed as the issue that was propelling him upward in the polls.[12]
What about the claim that Trump’s rise was a cable-induced phenomenon—that the traditional press resisted the Trump boom? That claim, like the other one, is not backed by the evidence. Trump was big news in every outlet. From the time of his announcement of candidacy until the end of 2015, he dominated the Republican coverage. His share of the leading contenders’ coverage, summed across the news outlets we studied is shown in Figure 4. Trump received a full third of the coverage. His coverage was nearly twice that of the next most heavily covered Republican candidate, Jeb Bush. And he received two-and-a-half times the news attention afforded Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, or Ted Cruz, and five times that given John Kasich. Moreover, Trump’s share did not differ greatly from one news outlet to the next. He was by far the most heavily covered Republican candidate in each of the eight news outlets in our study.[13]
Although Trump was the primary beneficiary of the press’s tendency to portray a “gaining ground” candidate favorably, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina had a brief taste of it. Fiorina’s burst of coverage occurred when she jumped in the polls after a much lauded debate performance in which she vividly described an undercover video that allegedly showed Planned Parenthood employees harvesting tissue from a still living fetus.[14] Her news coverage doubled from its previous level but the poll surge was as fleeting as her time in the media spotlight. As she slipped in the polls, she was thrust into a storyline that’s predictably unfavorable—the story of a candidate who’s “losing ground.” Speculation about the reason for the fall drives the story, and there’s nothing positive in a narrative of that type. The decline in the candidate’s fortunes, the ostensible cause of the decline, and the candidate’s desperate effort to reverse the decline are the chief ingredients of the “losing ground” narrative. In Fiorina’s case, journalists pointed to problems with her campaign organization, linking them to management issues that surfaced during her unsuccessful 2010 Senate bid and her rocky stint as Hewlett-Packard’s chief executive. Said CNN, “Her campaign and the super PAC supporting her . . . have struggled to craft a counter narrative to the criticism.”[15]
No candidate filled the “losing ground” storyline more snugly than did Jeb Bush. Early in 2015, he had a large lead in the polls and enjoyed corresponding favorable coverage. As his support declined, however, so did the tone of his coverage. In the first half of 2015, his coverage hovered in positive territory but, in the second half, trended downward. By December, the news of Bush was 70 percent negative—by far the most negative coverage afforded any major Republican contender at any point in the invisible primary.[16] Even his deportment became a storyline. “Mr. Bush does not seem to be radiating much joy these days,” said The New York Times in an article accompanied by a photo of a dour-looking Bush. “He said last year that he would run for president only if he could do so with a sunny spirit, but Mr. Trump, the surprise leader in the polls, has turned this summer into a miserable one for Mr. Bush.”[17]
Several Republican candidates, including Lindsey Graham, Rick Perry, and George Pataki, languished in the near-hell storyline of “likely loser.” Any such candidate in a large field of contenders is literally and figuratively damned. As Media Tenor’s Racheline Maltese puts it, “Candidates who are off the media agenda eventually find themselves out of the election.”[18] Seen to lack newsworthiness, they are unable to get the coverage they need to move up in the race. And when they are mentioned, they are portrayed as losers, a storyline that requires reporters to explain why. All candidates have their weaknesses but, in the case of “likely losers,” the weaknesses come to the fore. After Perry complained about not being included in the first prime-time presidential debate, the Los Angeles Times quoted Trump as saying that Perry needed to take “an IQ test” before being allowed on the debate stage, a reference accompanied by a description of Perry’s mental meltdown during a 2012 Republican debate.[19]
Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio had the good fortune of at least being on the news media’s grid. They received substantially more press attention than the virtually invisible contenders at the back of pack and twice that of John Kasich. Rubio’s poll numbers stayed within the range of 5-10 percent throughout nearly the whole of 2015, good enough to mark him as a potential nominee. At no time, however, did Rubio enjoy the quick jump in the polls that would have made journalists sit up and pay close attention. Cruz’s poll standing and news coverage were similar to Rubio’s for most of 2015. In the last two months, however, Cruz’s poll numbers began trending upward, as did his news coverage. As he rose in the polls, his coverage became more favorable, and he ended 2015 with the most favorable balance of news for the year of any of the leading Republican contenders.[20] Rubio’s balance was only slightly less favorable.[21] Cruz and Rubio emerged from 2015 with a realistic possibility of winning the Republican nomination. News coverage had helped doom the chances of the other GOP candidates, save for Donald Trump.
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Yup. This is a great article.
