Media mentions of all candidates tighten in February as first primaries are decided
Bernie Sanders has gained so much momentum with the print media that he’s moved into a virtual tie with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, both of whom are now nipping at the heels of Republican hopeful Donald Trump.
Trump has dominated our past two infographics (See December and January) in overall print media mentions. Our ongoing US political primary analysis has been featured in the Financial Times’ US election coverage.
But Trump, who had as high as 38 per cent share of voice in our December analysis of print mentions of the major candidates for both parties, has tumbled to just 23 per cent share of voice (partially because of fewer controversial yet heavily-covered announcements like this).
He’s closely followed in February so far by Clinton (20%), Sanders (19%) and Ted Cruz (16%), according to MediaMiser’s media monitoring and analysis software.
And although we’d said back in December that Sanders wasn’t getting much love from the media despite solid polling numbers, his recent strong showings in Iowa and victory in New Hampshire (and promising preliminary numbers in upcoming Nevada) has obviously changed that.
But it’s not just Sanders trending upward: Mentions of all candidates per day have steadily risen as the media have become more focused on the Democratic and Republican races.
Even though he’s suffered a steady decline in share of voice from December to February, Trump’s mentions per day in print media are up 35 per cent from January. And Clinton’s mentions per day in February are up nearly 85 per cent since last month.
Sanders’ mentions per day in February are up more than 150 per cent compared to January.
MediaMiser’s ongoing monitoring and analysis of the US Republican and Democratic primaries has tracked mentions of some of the top candidates since December.
Republican candidate Ben Carson, who has also been included in our past two infographics, and other Republican candidates with marginal amounts of mentions were not included in the February analysis.
