New: Trump won the popular vote narrowly. But in news deserts—counties where there are no local news sources or reporters —he won in a landslide. Latest by me and @volk_maps for Medill School’s Local News Initiative. localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/posts/2024/1... - ThreadSky

farhip.bsky.social • 80 days ago

New: Trump won the popular vote narrowly. But in news deserts—counties where there are no local news sources or reporters —he won in a landslide. Latest by me and @volk_maps for Medill School’s Local News Initiative. https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/posts/2024/12/05/trump-wins-news-deserts-in-landslide/

Comments

dogsincali.bsky.social•79 days ago

We really need to figure out how to counter this problem of "alternate facts". It is going to be hard to win elections of people don't know what is real anymore.

marcosantana.bsky.social•79 days ago

It’s likely that the decline in local newspapers has more to do with the decline in trust of institutions by both sides of the aisle.

You know what’s true because you made it up yourself. Just can’t beat that.

threekitties.bsky.social•79 days ago

Ignorant=MAGA

daveneste.bsky.social•79 days ago

Stupid people support the rapist and felon. This isn’t news.

beihai.bsky.social•79 days ago

it isn't because of news deserts, it is because of rural morons.
Chester county in PA used to be Republican, Romney won it slightly against Obama but Harris won it by 14.5%. Chester has a pop with a bachelors or higher at 56.1%
Fulton was Trump's best county at 86%. it has 16.3% college degree

beihai.bsky.social•79 days ago

Fulton county in PA has local news despite the county only having a population of 14,468 AND GOING DOWN.
i don't see how their having local news affects their politics at all. visit Pennsyltucky sometimes, the stupidity runs deep.
https://www.fultoncountynews.com/

jmax7.bsky.social•79 days ago

Dirt don’t vote.

dudeasincool.bsky.social•78 days ago

850,000 voters were suppressed

gregcarrhope.bsky.social•79 days ago

Nice read but the conclusion does not seem logical.

portfoliocarmel.bsky.social•78 days ago

📌

southland24.bsky.social•79 days ago

Trump voters ARE news deserts...

oswaldphaygood.bsky.social•80 days ago

Is this not proof enough that the biggest enemy Ds have in elections is ignorance, not wokeness? How about 40 years of the destruction of civics education in this country?

tseliott.bsky.social•78 days ago

I live in a red state. They believe right wing news because they WANT TO. It gives them a sense of importance. That is what democrats keep missing.

tseliott.bsky.social•78 days ago

Not understanding a scientific principle makes you feel dumb, but believing that science is a conspiracy and you're smart enough to see through it makes you feel special.

oswaldphaygood.bsky.social•77 days ago

I agree with what you're saying, but most of those folks are voting R, anyway. Ds have to get the "undecided voters", aka morons who have no clue how anything works. These are the people googling "what is a tariff?" the day AFTER the election.

tseliott.bsky.social•77 days ago

That's a really good point, but undecided voters are willfully not paying attention as well. We keep saying we need to educate them, but we can't force people to be smarter. We have to find messaging that works for these people. Republicans just lie to them

oswaldphaygood.bsky.social•77 days ago

Right, and that's exactly what Ds should do. Lie about the other side. Lie about what they'll do. Crazy, extravagant lies, over and over and over, on every network, podcast, radio show and youtube ad. From now til November 2028.

davemwilburn.bsky.social•79 days ago

The further question is whether this ignorance is a demand-side or supply-side problem. If provided with quality local news, would they even read it? Or would they insist on boiling there brains in their weirdo Facebook groups and right-wing podcasts instead?

oswaldphaygood.bsky.social•79 days ago

We'll never know, because newspapers are dead, and local stations are all owned by giant corporations. It's up to the people to be smart enough to know fact from bullshit. They aren't.

leegross.bsky.social•78 days ago

This is THE question. My experience with friends and family through the age of Trump is the widespread lack of curiosity about anything policy related. Details don't matter.

The term "intellectually lazy" fits this group.

Or maybe those details conflict with their prejudices.

reeseer83.bsky.social•78 days ago

News deserts are like food deserts - the fruit of relaxing regulation that existed for very good reasons.

johnnynovio.bsky.social•79 days ago

News deserts and paywalls on the internet makes people go to free sites for their "news" and we have seen what right leaning sites those are.

timjcj.bsky.social•79 days ago

Perhaps the GOP didn't actually win the 2024 election? If, like the Democrats, Trump had lost by 1.5% he would declare the election stolen, and organise fake electors & a storming of the Capitol.

yowiman.bsky.social•79 days ago

Almost time for Revolution

politcalmum.bsky.social•79 days ago

He did not win the popular vote. More people voted against him than for him. Posts like this don’t help

ktheintz.bsky.social•79 days ago

Trump won a plurality of the popular vote, which while hardly a mandate was more than he attained in his previous 2 runs.

politcalmum.bsky.social•79 days ago

That’s fine but the original post is decrying a lack of real info in some areas by being allowed to state something that’s not true

johnanderson2.bsky.social•79 days ago

Ignorance favors him.

yaren12.bsky.social•79 days ago

Fascinating insight! Lack of local news sources seems to have had a significant impact on voting behavior in those areas.

ksunny.bsky.social•78 days ago

Interesting research! Might be an idea for democrats to start a podcast/youtube show targeted specifically to rural America.

melissapgh13.bsky.social•78 days ago

I agree with that! Its sorely needed out there!

ragouri.bsky.social•69 days ago

He already said he loves the uneducated. Why is this a surprise?

memento1972.bsky.social•79 days ago

What should also be striking is that neither major party candidate appears to have been able to get more than 50% of the vote.

This country is so divided that even winning doesn’t amount to a majority any more.

There is no mandate here, but republicans are going to act like it

musingliberty.bsky.social•78 days ago

Even to the extent where print is available, I don't get the impression Trump voters actually consume it, and broadcast news has become woefully unserious.

vero1986.bsky.social•78 days ago

Wonder how they are going to feel about him when he cuts Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare along with head start and food stamps. The morons that voted for him are the ones that depend on these programs to survive..He won't give a damn.

retiredpatriot.bsky.social•78 days ago

They will cheer it on 'cause the cuts will be first targeted against small minorities (think out trans people) and blamed on other larger minorities ( think immigrants, bipoc) who are "mooching off the yt people."

All while the majority (poor yt peopje) get poorer & hungrier & angrier.

donaldb0320.bsky.social•79 days ago

Not true! It’s extreme right false conspiracy and propaganda! He only has one seat majority in congress and not much more in senate. And not all republicans support him either. That’s not the definition of landslide!

csilberman.bsky.social•78 days ago

📌

megalu.bsky.social•79 days ago

Because the platforming they gave him when he wasn’t president albeit mostly bad served as an ad campaign

mzburnzz.bsky.social•79 days ago

The US is reporting it that way as well.

vicsaintpaul.bsky.social•79 days ago

News deserts?? I call that "willful ignorance" 🤷‍♂️

tomtacoma.bsky.social•79 days ago

It’s because the free cable in these remote areas has Fox News, Newsmax and other random right leaning channels. People are only exposed to one side of the propaganda.

oldandblue.bsky.social•79 days ago

Where is there FREE cable?

tomtacoma.bsky.social•79 days ago

Every TV comes with suite of channels that all you need is the internet

rocky74.bsky.social•78 days ago

This seems like a chicken and the egg question … are these folks so ignorant because they live in news deserts, or are these areas news deserts because so many ignorant folks live there?

jmsantiago.bsky.social•79 days ago

📌

cybertardis.bsky.social•69 days ago

📌

slammerog.bsky.social•79 days ago

I’m not surprised. You have to be uninformed to vote for that clown.

tseliott.bsky.social•79 days ago

It's not about lack of available information - it's the willful refusal to believe anything but right wing sources.

mikeb62.bsky.social•79 days ago

Agreed - the belief that anything other than Fox News, Newsmax, etc. is “Fake News” is absolutely mind boggling.

jasonpaul.bsky.social•79 days ago

That red map continues to get published and shared.

dancinglady84.bsky.social•79 days ago

Bigly numbers are so confusing for Trumpie's pea size brain.

patrick-sweet.bsky.social•80 days ago

Democracy truly does die in darkness.

accountabilabuddy.bsky.social•78 days ago

Technically "winning" the popular vote would require 50%+1, so no, he didn't do that either.

(It would not matter if he had since the 14th amendment disqualifies him from office.)

mx5bob.bsky.social•76 days ago

Trump today said again that he won the popular vote by a large margin. Nope. 6th closest of the elections in which a single candidate won both the popular vote and Electoral College. Trump’s EC total ranks 22nd out of the 51 US presidential elections. No landslide. Not a mandate.

bikingcitizen.bsky.social•78 days ago

(Hat tip to @charlesgaba.com for reposting this) One overlooked factor in this trend is the role of right-wing AM talk radio. In rural areas where people drive a lot for basic errands, they have a lot of exposure to misinformation. On the rare occasions when I tune in to it, I'm shocked.

cuuixsilver.bsky.social•77 days ago

Definitely. And FoxNews is carried on every satellite service— often playing in waiting rooms.

vitruviankevin.bsky.social•80 days ago

Is there any chance there is a correlation with the deliberate throttling of newspaper printing and distribution across the country, with even local papers being almost impossible to locate? If it happened in Louisville, KY, it happened across every state.

farhip.bsky.social•80 days ago

I don’t know about deliberate. Doesn’t have to be—the economic conditions for local newspapers are so grim that it doesn’t take much to spur cuts of all kinds.

vitruviankevin.bsky.social•80 days ago

That I get, but now that the election is over, the newspapers are back on the racks. I work a bookstore, a major chain bookstore. We didn't get a single issue of our local paper for a year or more.

vitruviankevin.bsky.social•80 days ago

There were changes in where the papers were printed a while back, which is one thing. The downturn of newspapers as a business is another thing. Considering the moves of the owner of the LA Times and other outlets, I can't trust that it's a coincidence.

avoidingpublic.bsky.social•79 days ago

Throttling on FM radio too. So much dead air during news breaks. Like they actually hit mute so we couldn't hear certain parts. Never during the music, just the news.

bytor0509.bsky.social•78 days ago

For me, the bigger story is that it takes a 7% popular vote margin for the Democrats to win the electoral vote

queenky2323.bsky.social•79 days ago

is this the fault of the media... absolutely not....they do not want to know the truth they sit in their living rooms turn fox on and get into their comfort zone even when they suffer the consequences of their choice they will blame it on dems

gregglade.bsky.social•79 days ago

But did he narrowly win the majority of actual votes?
Has anyone commissioned a hand recount of any of the swing states to compare it to the ballot scanning/counting machines that were using their latest pre-election software “update”?

billhooper5.bsky.social•79 days ago

Funny, once again ballots against Trump seem to be magically appearing.

oldwisdom.bsky.social•79 days ago

Trump lies

litsist.bsky.social•79 days ago

I think this might be indicating that local news makes a difference?

ecohomeboy.bsky.social•79 days ago

Any ideas on how to make the desert bloom?

Desalination plants?

News as a charitable enterprise?

vwinsloe.bsky.social•79 days ago

Non-profit local news.

spiritplumber.bsky.social•79 days ago

The problem with something like a staff-owner newspaper is that it's easier and cheaper to flood the zone with AI slop than to gather and redistribute actual local news.

ecohomeboy.bsky.social•79 days ago

Fair amount of logic in that statement but the intention would be there to change for better if affordable and of course significantly less harmful than corp owned that uses any means necessary to further corporate control, tax avoidance, rw agenda etc etc

spiritplumber.bsky.social•79 days ago

not sure how to help

bill-fouche.bsky.social•79 days ago

Just another way of saying that population density is strongly correlated with support for Democrats. Thus, the more rural the region, the redder the vote tends to be. Not a surprise.

natebowling.com•79 days ago

It doesn't matter how much he won by. He was going to call it a landslide regardless and his supporters will believe that.

He literally lost the popular vote in 2016, scoring the most narrow electoral college victory since 2004, and called his victory unprecedented.

cdwilsher.bsky.social•77 days ago

Don't they have the Internet with its practically infinite humber of news sources in these rural areas?

cuuixsilver.bsky.social•77 days ago

Possibly not. I’m in rural Maine and coverage here is spotty at best.

mydoggyruss.bsky.social•79 days ago

The felon himself is the one endlessly repeating this, his new Big Lie. Media is being lazy (and fawning) by reporting this without context, actual numbers, or repudiation.

maya-18.bsky.social•77 days ago

Will Bunch re-posted this - so that got you a follow from me.
Howdy.👋

dasquires1.bsky.social•79 days ago

This is a big problem, even in more populated areas there are no local newspapers (or if they do, it's a small circulation and cost too much). And many local tv stations have been bought by conservative/maga owned corporations. And most talk radio and biggest podcasts are maga. Tough to overcome.

paddlefoot123.bsky.social•79 days ago

This seems like a chicken or egg question. Is the lack of local news leading people to seek out other dubious sources of news instead? Or, is the fact that people in these places don't consume much, if any, news the real problem and the cause of the death of local news?

justhavinfun.bsky.social•79 days ago

News deserts may contribute to mass ignorance, but when I look around my cherry red area, I think willful ignorance is the dominant reason people vote the way they do.

oldandblue.bsky.social•79 days ago

There’s a word for “willful ignorance;” it’s LAZINESS. And Americans are the LAZIEST folks on earth

justhavinfun.bsky.social•79 days ago

I know a number of ignorant people who are far from lazy. I think incurious best describes them.

empathjas.bsky.social•79 days ago

You would have to be ignorant to vote Trump. Thanks for proving it.

gregcarrhope.bsky.social•79 days ago

Well the Ignorants won the White House and the Senate.

ktheintz.bsky.social•79 days ago

The chain of causation here is far from obvious; quite possible that the erosion of journalistic reach is even worse than the population density would predict, due to that demo's hostility to legacy media.

slickflood.bsky.social•79 days ago

Of course.More people actually voted against him than for him if you include the 3rd party choices who did not want either.

sadoul.bsky.social•79 days ago

I’ll be very honest, I’m going to read this in depth later and probably do a spiral of googling, I’ve only skimmed for now but how much of this is just rural voters tend to go for Trump and rural settings tend to be news deserts?

Do we have data that shows these counties uniquely went for Trump?

tulliuscicero43.bsky.social•79 days ago

📌

td12212.bsky.social•79 days ago

In this day and age ignorance is a choice. This article is saying that local news removes some of that ignorance by force.

lindamaetx.bsky.social•79 days ago

I have found that the local news stations here (not in Sinclair network) are doing excellent reporting. Inroads need to be made to get balanced reporting on the radio, which is where much of rural America gets their entertainment and news. Thank your reporting!

davidmckinney59.bsky.social•79 days ago

Amazing we have citizens living in the 1800's. Talk about the left behind!

phibetabob.bsky.social•79 days ago

Essentially everyone has internet access these days so the facts and truth are there no matter where you are. They chose to believe lies that align with their warped biases.

evolvegracefully.bsky.social•78 days ago

All the votes have not been counted yet, nor the ballots that people never got, or were simply not registered by the software! 🙄😬

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