Voters See Media A Lot More Eager To Help Biden Than Trump

Voters still think most news reporters are biased and will continue to help Joe Biden a lot more than President Trump in their coverage of the presidential campaign.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters believe most reporters try to help the candidate they want to win when covering a political campaign, although that’s down dramatically from the 69% who felt that way during the 2016 presidential campaign. Forty-one percent (41%) disagree and say most try to offer unbiased coverage instead. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Seventy-four percent (74%) of Republicans and a plurality (49%) of voters not affiliated with either major political party think most reporters try to help the candidate they favor. But 57% of Democrats say most reporters are trying to provide unbiased coverage.

Still, 59% of all voters think Biden, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, has received the best treatment from the media so far. Just 18% believe the media has treated Trump better. Twenty-three percent (23%) are undecided.

Looking ahead, 50% expect most reporters to try to help Biden. Only five percent (5%) say most will try to help Trump instead. Thirty-five percent (35%) predict that most reporters will offer unbiased coverage.

Voters saw a similar pro-Democrat bias in the two previous presidential elections. In July 2016, 50% said most reporters would try to help Hillary Clinton versus 11% who would try to help Trump more. In the fall of 2012, 51% expected most reporters to try to help Barack Obama, while only nine percent (9%) thought they would be biased in favor of his GOP opponent Mitt Romney.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted July 15-16, 2020 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Following the high-profile resignation of a New York Times opinion page editor, most voters are eager to find fair and balanced media coverage but think the majority of news organizations these days are politically biased.

Among voters who think most reporters try to help the candidate they want to win, 79% think most will try to help Biden. Just three percent (3%) say most reporters will try to help Trump.

While 75% of Republicans expect most reporters to try to help Biden, only 29% of Democrats agree. But just six percent (6%) of Democratic voters think most reporters will try to help Trump.

Among unaffiliated voters, 47% say most reporters will try to help Biden in the upcoming campaign versus three percent (3%) who think Trump will have the advantage. Forty percent (40%) predict that the coverage will be mostly unbiased.

In nearly all demographic categories, the number of voters who think most reporters will slant their coverage in Trump’s favor is in single digits.

Sixty-five percent (65%) of Republican voters said in April that most reporters covering the coronavirus were out to get Trump. Seventy-two percent (72%) of Democrats said they were unbiased.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of Republicans – and 53% of all voters – said last November that most reporters were trying to help impeach Trump when writing or talking about the Democrats’ impeachment effort. Only 36% of Democrats agreed.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

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