If we had to describe the 2024 presidential election in one word, we’d use “newsworthy”, to put it as mildly as possible. The race for the White House captivated audiences worldwide, for good reason. So, we thought we’d take a look at Australian data behind the race, and analyse the coverage volumes of every twist and turn of this high-stakes political drama (this season was pretty insane).
(Candidate name mentions, across Australian Print, Online, Radio, TV.)
The first large coverage spike occurred on the 31st of May 2024 (totalling 22,447 mentions), when Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records from 2016 hush-money payments to Stormi Daniels. The verdict made Trump the first ever former President to be convicted of a felony in American history.
The next story to break over 10000 mentions, was the aftermath of the first Presidential debate, on June 28th. Specifically, coverage concerned President Joe Biden’s mental fitness and capability as a candidate after what the Sydney Morning Herald called an “occasionally incoherent” performance and a “nightmare” for the Democrats. Media opinion and analysis of the debate performance and what it meant for the race altogether continued the following week.
Biden's debate performance finally fell out of the news cycle in early July, when the US Supreme Court ruled in favour of protections for actions committed by Presidents during their term to be (to an undetermined extent) immune from criminal prosecution after they’d left office. The hugely controversial decision threw a spanner into the ongoing criminal cases against Donald Trump, and was seen to have widereaching implications for the future of the executive branch in the US.
Keep in mind, this only seven months into the year.
On the 14th of July, at 8:11 am (AEST), there is an assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania. This story goes on to be the top most covered story of the week for the week of July 19th, according to Streem data - totalling over 115,887 total mentions across the week on Australian Online, Print, TV and Radio. The 2nd most reported story that week, the 2024 NATO Summit, received 30,000 fewer mentions overall.
The record for most covered US Election story did not last long, as just over a week later President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, and endorsed Kamala Harris for the Democratic ticket. Joe Biden is mentioned over 34,000 times in the Australian news on this day, and Vice President Kamala Harris is mentioned over 25,000 times.
Harris receives her first spike independent of Joe Biden on August 7 when she announces Tim Walz as her running mate, and does so again on August 23 when she officially accepts the nomination to be the Democratic Presidential candidate at the DNC.
The last two notable coverage spikes occurred within days of each other, following the second (and final) Presidential debate. Trump received 19,911 mentions after the debate, to Harris’s 15,502. Trump's lead in mentions here is likely due to his “they’re eating the dogs, the cats” remark during the debate, which earned him an onstage fact-check.
Less than a week after the debate, there is a second assassination attempt on Donald Trump - and the story is also the most reported story of the week in Australia, gaining 29,749 mentions that week.
Since Kamala Harris took over as the nominee (from July 22 to November 5), she has received a 46.3% Share of Voice to Trump’s 53.7% in media mentions.
Candidate Share of Voice:
(Australian Print, Online, Radio, TV)
Interestingly, Australian media mention volumes were able to accurately picked the future President, as Trump had quite a lead in share-of-voice ahead of his win. We didn't see any specific stand-out stories in this coverage, just pundits making predictions about the future electoral outcomes in swing states based on early voting data and the last polls coming out of the US.