What Pop Culture Can Teach Us About the 25th Amendment

 There has been a lot of discussion about the 25^th Amendment ever since armed rioters stormed the Capitol on Wednesday, January 6, 2021.  On this day, Congress was performing its constitutional duty of certifying the Electoral vote in favor of Joseph Biden over Donald Trump, as determined by the popular vote in each state from the election held on November 3.  Objections were raised to the electoral vote in Arizona by members of both the House and Senate, so each house of congress met in their respective chamber to debate the results.  Shortly after debate began, the Capitol was breached by angry, armed rioters.  These rioters had been in attendance at a rally hosted by Trump, held at a park near the White House, at which he told them, “And after this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you.  We’re going to walk to the Capitol…You’ll never take back our country with weakness.  You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”  Heeding Trump’s advice, these citizens marched to the Capitol, breached the barricades, and broke in.  Members of congress were forced to seek shelter, with gas masks in hand in case of tear gas or some other airborne attack.  Five people were killed in the attack, including a Capitol Hill police officer—though no member of congress was injured.  So, after a roughly six-hour delay, Congress reconvened to finish certifying the electoral vote. 

Photo of rioters breaching the Capitol on January 6, 2021 taken from Reuters. 

In response to these attacks, several methods to remove Trump from power have been discussed.  Given his rhetoric surrounding the election results and his calls for shows of strength and urges to fight on his behalf, many have placed at least some of the blame for what happened on January 6 on Trump.  There are two main avenues by which a president may be forced to leave office prior to the end of his term: impeachment and conviction, and the 25^th Amendment.  Impeachment is understood by the American public because we have seen presidents impeached—some in recent memory (Bill Clinton in 1998 and Donald Trump in 2019)—though neither were convicted in their respective Senate trial.  However, we have never witnessed a president removed from power via the 25^th Amendment, leaving the American public largely uninformed about how the process works.    

We have seen the first three sections of the 25^th Amendment invoked in the past.  The first section provides for the succession to the presidency by the vice president in the case where the president is unable to fulfill his duties (i.e. death or resignation).  The second section explains how a Vice President is to be replaced should the vice presidency become vacant (the president appoints a new V.P. who has to be approved by a majority in both houses of congress).  Both of these sections were invoked in the Watergate era.  Gerald Ford was made Vice President via section two after Spiro Agnew resigned and was then made President via section one after Nixon resigned the presidency.  Section three has been invoked a few times by presidents receiving medical procedures requiring anesthesia, under which they would be unable to discharge presidential duties.  Both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush invoked section three when they received colonoscopies.  Section four, on the other hand, has never been invoked.  Section four allows for the removal of a president from office with a majority vote of the President’s cabinet, including the Vice President.  The Vice President would then become president until the President is deemed capable of reassuming office.  Section four was designed to provide a way to transfer presidential power in the case where a president may suffer a debilitating, yet non-fatal, medical episode (e.g. stroke, heart attack) and be incapable of invoking section three.  This is something we have not witnessed as a country and why pop culture can help us understand how this process works. 

TV shows and movies often include storylines revolving around the 25^th Amendment because of the drama it includes.  Removing a president from power due to a health crisis (Madam Secretary), the temporary transfer of presidential power due to a child’s kidnapping (The West Wing), dealing with the disappearance of a president after a tragic accident (Political Animals), tend to provide for a boost in ratings due to the interesting storyline.  While all sections of the 25^th Amendment have found their way into pop culture, the fourth section’s portrayal holds the unique privilege of being our only look at how it would be invoked, as it has never been invoked by a president’s cabinet. 

The television show Madam Secretary provides us with the clearest look at section four, at least related to the current situation the United States finds itself in.  In the twelfth episode of Season Four, entitled “Sound and Fury,” Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord questions both the mental soundness and overall health of President Dalton after he prepares a military attack in response to a Russian sonic attack on the U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria.  This is not a typical response of Dalton, who also appears to be becoming more easily agitated than normal.  After convincing Dalton to hold off any sort of military action for 24 hours, there is finally evidence presented that Russia was not behind the attack.  However, Dalton still wants to attack Russia, regardless of the evidence.  This is when McCord gathers the cabinet and Vice President to discuss invoking the 25^th Amendment.  While there is hesitation among cabinet secretaries, who are concerned about protecting Dalton’s reputation, McCord ultimately convinces them to invoke section four until Dalton undergoes medical testing.  After testing, doctors found a malignant brain tumor pressing on Dalton’s frontal lobe, causing him to act more aggressively than normal.  Upon successful surgery and recuperation, Dalton resumes his presidential duties, with the Vice President returning to the vice presidency. 

This storyline from Madam Secretary gives us the our most useful example of how the fourth section of the 25^th Amendment was meant to be used, as we have not seen it invoked by any presidential cabinet in history.  Section four of the 25^th Amendment was designed to allow for the removal of a president who is incapable of performing his or her duties.  While there is much discussion surrounding this Amendment in the final days of the Trump administration, Vice President Mike Pence has voiced opposition to invoking the 25^th Amendment, all but ensuring it will not be used.  We thus seem to be left with pop culture examples to help elucidate how its invocation would work.

For more information on the history of the 25^th Amendment and how pop culture has played with storylines revolving around it, feel free to check out my recently published article, “A Heartbeat Away: Popular Culture’s Role in Teaching Presidential Succession.”  It was published in Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy (an online, open access journal) and can be found (without a paywall) by clicking here. 

Teaching American Democracy at the American Studies Center - University of Warsaw (ASC-UW)

The Course: American Democracy and Critical Perspectives

Last Fall, I was fortunate enough to be selected as the first faculty member from Daemen College to participate in the exchange program with the American Studies Center of the University of Warsaw (ASC UW). The ASC is one of the largest American Studies departments in Europe offering interdisciplinary B.A., M.A. and postgraduate programs. As one ASC student explains, the “program extends into many areas of research including history, political science, literature studies, cultural studies, and social sciences which gives us a broad perspective on America and allows students to pursue their various interests.”

The American Studies Center (OSA-UW). 

Photo credit: Lisa Parshall

The course was designed to provide a critical view of American democracy with respect to the treatment of minority groups within the United States political system. I chose as our focus, the role of Native Americans and African-Americans—two groups with distinct, yet in some ways parallel experiences, as “the first and the forced” among our citizenry (Leiker, Warren, and Watkins 2007).

Felix Cohen, the foremost scholar on Federal Indian Policy, wrote in 1953: “Like the miner’s canary, the Indian marks the shift from fresh air to poison gas in our political atmosphere; and our treatment of Indians, even more than our treatment of other minorities, reflects the rise and fall in our democratic faith” (390). Cohen’s seminal work included the following observation by Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) director, John Collier:

“What sort of treatment dominant groups give to subject groups- how governments treat minorities– and how big countries treat little countries. This is a subject that comes down the centuries and never was it a more burning subject that in this year (1939). So this is the question: “How has our country treated its oldest and most persistent minority, the Indians. How has it treated them, and how is it treating them now?”

Felix S. Cohen, author of the Federal Handbook of Indian Law

Photo Credit: www.doi.gov/interiormuseum/programs/Felix-Cohen

The displacement of sovereign democratic nations in the founding of our own, and the subsequent treatment of Native Americans under federal policy, stands in stark contrast to American democratic ideals. So too has the treatment of African-Americans and the continued legacy of slavery and segregation presented a paradox for the celebration of American democracy. These brutal histories, and the contemporary realities faced by minority communities, are ongoing “problems” for a democratic political system that is founded upon the logic of equality and the promise of equal protection under law.

The design for the course was already ambitious, covering a blend of historical and contemporary issues impacting Native and African Americans as lens through which to view the effective functioning of the American political system. I had no idea in designing the course that events would conspire to make the spring semester one of the most dynamic times to be teaching a democracy course. The 2016 election and developments of the early Trump Administration provided twists that were both a challenge and an opportunity. Whatever one’s politics, the first few months of the Trump Administration have proven eventful in terms of the daily news cycle; and the functioning of the executive branch has been anything but routine.

Even as we talked about the fundamental elements of what constitutes a democracy, intelligence reports confirmed efforts at external election interference; the investigations of the House and Senate investigatory committees lurched on in fits and starts. Then came the firing of FBI director, James Comey, and Trump’s tweets about the possible existence of tape recorded conversations raised the specter of a brewing crises with shades of Watergate. Former National Intelligence Director, James Clapper, asserted that American institutions were under assault—internally as well as externally. With mounting pressures, an independent counsel was named. The ongoing litigation over Trump’s travel ban sparked more rhetoric challenging the independence and legitimacy of judiciary. The President’s first international trip revealed a United States out of accord with important democratic allies on climate and trade. On his return, Trump announced he was pulling the United States out of the Paris Treaty and there were renewed assertions of executive authority in the aftermath of two international terrorist attacks. In short, the basic foundations and function of our constitutional system of separated powers and checks and balances were on full display. 

The pace of developments germane to minority rights was no less spectacular. A course which started with a historical overview of the loss of Indian sovereignty and territory ended with the administration’s intention to privatize ownership of federal lands. Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first Supreme Court appointee and the first justice in a long while to have substantial experience with Native American legal issues (from his time on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals), assumed his seat on the Court. Our classroom discussion of the Standing Rock Protests coincided with news of another leak in the newly opened Dakota Access Pipeline. Our discussion of the long history of Civil Rights, concluded recent announcements by Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, that the Department of Justice was rescinding federal investigations of state, local, and tribal authority and proposed budget cuts in the civil rights divisions in the departments of labor and education. And our discussion of voting rights was topped off by the Supreme Court’s condemnation of the North Carolina redistricting efforts for using partisanship as a proxy for race with the surprising key vote of Justice Clarence Thomas.  

All of this was set, of course, within the context of global politics, the rise of national populist movements, and a re-examination of democratic trends. As one of the students noted, “the rise of nationalistic sentiments and populism in global politics,” makes understanding “American democracy’s place in the international arena even more important.” When and how do democracies backslide?  What are the harbingers of democratic dysfunction? 

Reflecting on the timing of the course and the importance of American studies more generally, one of the students writes:

The United States, being one of the hegemons of democracy is an important subject of study. I think it is a very good time to study American Democracy, because of what’s been happening in both Europe and in the United State over the last few years. As more and more people are starting to doubt democratic systems, they are turning towards nationalistic ideas. America exerts huge influence on the rest of the world: politically, economically, culturally. Some would even say that we may be witnessing a moment, when some democratic principles are being questioned or dismantled. People assume that democracy will last forever; however, it is not so simple.

The American Studies Center Sign

Photo Credit: Lisa Parshall

Unique Perspectives on American Democracy

The students at the OSA-American Studies Center are among the best and brightest, and it was a rare treat to teach a class to graduate students who brought a unique perspective on these issues of American Democracy. Impressively, my students were not just well-versed in basic American history and politics, they were avid consumers of American news, which greatly enhanced our discussions and allowed us to incorporate current events in our consideration of democratic processes.  

Each of the students in my class had chosen the elective because of their interest in minority rights in the United States. Their broader research interests, however, were much more varied and included African-American political thought, gender and queer studies, immigration, and international politics. For several students, the consideration of Native Americans’ place in the American Political system was of special interest. “Even though I have been enrolled in an American Studies program for four years now, I had never had a class on Native Americans and my knowledge about them was very limited.”  The absence of courses dedicated to Native American tribal sovereignty and federal Indian policy is common in the curriculum of American colleges and Universities as well. 

The perspective of the course was designed to be a critical one, providing students with “more diverse and nuanced perspectives, instead of an idealized picture” of a “utopian American democracy.” For one student, the class “confirmed my view that American Democracy (just like any other democracy) isn’t perfect and there are flaws, which are often overlooked in school or university curricula.... Thanks to the broadening of my knowledge concerning Native Americans and African Americans position within the American legal system, I was able to more fully understand both the causes and the consequences of contemporary inequalities.”

As importantly, I learned a great deal from the students regarding the state of liberal democracies in Europe and Poland, and of the impact of globalization and economic decline on minority rights. Their own interests sometimes took the course in unexpected, yet no less important directions as we expanded our lens to consider the place of women and the LGBT community in politics. Overall, the interaction of  such differing vantage points helps to “force both students and faculty to step out of their bubble and confront different ideas about America and American Democracy, and greatly contributes to academic development.”

The Exchange Program Between Daemen College and the ASC-UW

The exchange program was made possible through the efforts of Professor Andrew Wise, the Director of Daemen College’s Polish Studies program in collaboration with Dr. Sławomir Józefowicz, the International Mobility Coordinator at the ASC and with the support of ASC director, Dr. Grzegorz Kość.

In Fall 2017, Assistant Professor Dr. Karolina Krasuska will travel to Daemen where she will team-teach a course with Professor Andrew Wise: HST 206, Twentieth Century Europe. For faculty and students in the classroom, the exchange is “an opportunity to learn about the different culture of studying and teaching. Even though both Poland and the United States are considered part of the so-called Western world, there are some, maybe even considerable, differences in the approach to the subject of university studies. This is a chance to see differences in the curricula; the observations may serve as an inspiration as to what could be changed or differently implemented.”

As envisioned, students who take part in the exchange would not necessarily be limited to taking coursework in the ASC (University of Warsaw) or the Department of History and Political Science (Daemen College), but may potentially take classes in other disciplines of their specific academic interest. The respective departments might, in other words, serve as a home-base for students seeking to take coursework at the partner institution, allowing them to partake in the immersive experience which comes from studying abroad. “Above all else, the exchange is a chance to experience living and/or working in a foreign country: an experience that may prove to be essential in one’s future career and life.”

Łazienki Park (Park Łazienkowski) is one of many beautiful greenspaces in Warsaw.

Photo Credit: Lisa Parshall

American students traveling to Poland will discover a safe and comfortable experience.  There is no shortage of places to explore in Warsaw, including beautiful parks, cultural and educational museums, cafes, and clubs.  The Metro system is convenient and easy to navigate. And cities like Krakow and Gdansk are easily accessible by train.  ASC students advise our English-speaking students not to view language as a barrier: in Poland “most young people can speak English at least on a communicative level, so there’s nothing to worry about.”  They also add that “some Americans might have a stereotypical idea of Poland, since we are economically disadvantaged compared to the rest of the European Union,” but note “that we are not in poverty and our cities are comparable to big cities in Europe.”  The important thing is to “keep an open mind,” and “to take the opportunity to try to learn something about the Polish culture.”

Scenes Along the Royal Way in Old Town

Photo Credit: Lisa Parshall

Special thanks to the ASC-UW class for their contributions of thoughts and observations to the blog (and whose quotes are indicated by italics).

Daemen College students who are interested in learning more about the Polish Studies Program and/or the exchange opportunity with the ASC-UW should contact Dr. Andrew Wise, Professor of History, at awise@daemen.edu.  Daemen College’s Global Programs Office can help any answer questions you may have about studying abroad and can help provide logistical support.   

References

The First and the Forced: Essays on the Native American and African American Experience.  Edited by James N. Leiker, Kim Warren, and Barbara Watkins (2007).

The Federal Handbook of Indian Law, Felix S. Cohen (1942).

The Erosion of Indian Rights, Felix S. Cohen (1953).

Keeping an Eye on Justice Kennedy Continued

Taking “Judicial Notice”  

      

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post recommending that students keep their eye on Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in the ongoing legal battles over the Trump Administration’s travel ban.  Following the judicial invalidation of the initial Executive Order (Order No. 13769, issued January 27, 2017), upheld by a 3-0 ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Trump Administration opted to make revisions.  A revised version (No. 13780) was issued on March 6, 2017.  

On Wednesday, March 15, the revised ban was blocked by temporary restraining orders issued by the United States Federal District Courts in Hawaii and Maryland.  (A challenge by the State of Washington is still pending).  

Judge Derrick K. Watson, of the Federal District Court in Honolulu, found that procedural and other revisions did not remedy the central defects as previously identified by the courts.  In so ruling, the Federal Court took judicial notice of the public comments of Donald Trump, both as a presidential candidate and in his official capacity as President, as well as the commentary and explanations offered by White House staff and surrogates:

Because a reasonable, objective observer—enlightened by the specific historical context, contemporaneous public statements, and specific sequence of events leading to its issuance—would conclude that the Executive Order was issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion, in spite of its stated, religiously-neutral purpose, the Court finds that Plaintiffs, and Dr. Elshikh in particular, are likely to succeed on the merits of their Establishment Clause claim (CV. NO. 17-00050 DKW-KSC). 

U.S. Federal District Judge Derrick K. Watson
Photo Credit: Associated Press

In his immediate response to the decisions on his revised ban, President Trump has again vowed to appeal. Whatever the Circuit Courts decide, it seems likely that this time the matter will work its way all the way to the United States Supreme Court. 

What Will Kennedy Likely Notice?

The ruling by Judge Watson frames the legal issues in terms of religious (First Amendment) rights.  The federal government has already indicated a two-fold argument in response: 1) that the law is facially neutral and that the district court overstepped by inquiring into the law’s underlying motivations and 2) that the order is necessarily and legitimately related to the compelling purpose of protecting national security.

Although the Supreme Court has been generally deferential to executive claims of necessity that are based upon national security interests, as I pointed out in my previous blog post on this topic, Justice Kennedy has been particularly emphatic that national security need not and must not come at the cost of constitutional liberty. 

There are two other cases (one from 1992 and from just a few weeks ago) which potentially shed light on what might guide Kennedy’s consideration of the Trump Administration’s arguments in support of its travel ban.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Anthony M. Kennedy
Original photo credit: 
http://cdn.quotesgram.com/img/2/57/702418048-Getty_032712_JusticeAnthonyKennedy.jpg

Writing for the Court in, Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah (508 U.S. 520) in 1992, Justice Kennedy invalidated a facially neutral ordinance prohibiting (ostensibly on public health grounds) the slaughtering of animals within city limits.  Kennedy rejected the claim of a facially neutral law, finding instead that the ordinance had been motivated by religious animus toward local practioners of the Santeria religion. The lack of neutrality, he found, could be determined from “both direct and circumstantial evidence”  including public and private commentary by local lawmakers in debating and discussing the ban. Kennedy’s opinion ruled that the law was neither neutral, nor generally applicable to all, nor sufficiently narrowly tailored to meet the  legitimate governmental concerns.  Kennedy stressed that the First Amendment “commits government itself to religious tolerance, and upon even slight suspicion that proposals…stem from animosity to religion or distrust of its practices, all officials must pause to remember their own high duty to the Constitution and the rights it secures.”

More recently, in a 5-3 ruling, Kennedy reiterated that racial bias has no legitimate place in the administration of justice.  His ruling in Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado thus authorized the reconsideration of a jury verdict where it was subsequently revealed that a juror had made verbal statements in deliberations that reflected racial bias against the criminal defendant.  It was, Kennedy held, appropriate for a trial judges to consider such statements in retroactively determining whether the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial had been violated. Kennedy wrote:

The Nation must continue to make strides to overcome race-based discrimination. The progress that has already been made underlies the Court’s insistence that blatant racial prejudice is antithetical to the functioning of the jury system and must be confronted in egregious cases like this one despite the general bar of the no-impeachment rule. It is the mark of a maturing legal system that it seeks to understand and to implement the lessons of history.

Implementing the “Lessons of History”

So what are these lessons of history that mark the evolution of a “maturing legal system”? 

If (or when) the travel ban reaches the Supreme Court, it is not likely to escape judicial notice (Kennedy’s or others') that we recently observed the 75th anniversary of Korematsu v. United States (323 U.S. 214) in which the Supreme Court upheld President Franklin Roosevelt’s executive order interring Japanese Americans during World War II.  It is an unavoidable backdrop against which all claims of executive necessity are to be forever measured.  The 5-person majority in Korematsu did not question the executive branch’s motives nor did they challenge its determination that such sweeping measures were legitimately necessary.  As Justice Felix Frankfurter (in)famously noted in his concurrence, war powers and national security matters are constitutionally vested to the political branches and not to the courts. Korematus thus stands in the law books as a judicial validation of broad executive power in times of a national emergency or crisis.

But the insights of that ruling for the current justices (Kennedy perhaps included) may be drawn from the opinions of the dissenting justices who warned about animus and discrimination under the guise of facially neutral-justifications. Judicial validation of such claims, Justice Robert Jackson warned, are bound to become “a loaded weapon, ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need. Every repetition imbeds that principle more deeply in our law and thinking and expands it to new purposes” (323 U.S. 214, Justice Robert Jackson, dissenting).

It is by no means a given that the conservative Kennedy will accept executive assertions of legitimate national security interests without inquiring into the alleged motivations behind the ban and without full and careful consideration of the competing religious claims raised in the state challenges.  

When Justice Kennedy “errs” in close cases, it is often on the side of liberty. Because the closely divided Court currently stands at 8 members (pending the confirmation of the late Justice Scalia’s replacement), whichever way the Supreme Court tends on the travel ban question, Kennedy’s views will be particularly critical to the outcome.  Kennedy’s romanticized conception of the judicial role, along with his willingness to consider evolving sensibilities, the maturation of the legal system and emergence of newly recognized rights, and a lower court ruling that seems perfectly pitched to Justice Kennedy’s ear – means there is much in the travel ban cases of which Kennedy can and likely will take careful notice himself. 

President Donald Trump displaying his signature on the travel
ban executive order.
Photo Credit: Associated Press 

PSC 305, American Constitutional Law is offered regularly in the Fall Semester. The course covers the evolution, scope, and relative powers of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches and the major constitutional doctrines of separated powers and federalism (federal versus state powers). We cover constitutional law as part of American political development and discuss contemporary constitutional controversies.  

Political Science Makes Sense of the Media’s Role in the 2016 Presidential Nomination Contests

As happens every four years, the American public is subjected to a presidential election.  However, before the November election, we are subjected to at least a year and a half of campaigning (first for the nomination and then the presidency).  With the campaign comes nonstop media coverage of the candidates: their views on the issues, where they are visiting, what scandalous things they have said or done in their past, and most importantly polls and projections of who is going to come away the victor.  The nomination process can be described as a game of attrition, in which we watch the candidates battle it out until only one remains standing.  With the nomination contests coming to an end June 14, we now know that this general election season pits Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, against Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee. 

Hillary Clinton (D-NY)

Donald Trump (R-NY)

The media coverage of this election cycle has received a fair amount of scrutiny from political scientists, media pundits, and the candidates alike.  This should be expected as it happens every four years.  However, this year many scathing articles have discussed at length the failings of the media and the shallow reporting done on the main news channels and in the major newspapers.  The New York Times ran an article entitled “The Republican Horse Race Is Over, and Journalism Lost.”  Huffington Post wrote about “Why the Media Got it Wrong about Trump and Sanders Phenomena” and Politico said “The Media’s Trump Reckoning: ‘Everyone was Wrong’.”  Finally, even Vanity Fair stated “The Media is Very Sorry for Getting Trump Wrong.”  So, did the media “get it wrong?”  Is the media the reason Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the nominees?  What were the media outlets actually reporting on?  Looking at the data provided for us in Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government’s Shorenstein Center on Media sheds some light on these questions. 

Much of the coverage focused on the horserace and not issues.  This too should have been expected.  Usually we see about 75% of news reports focusing on who is ahead in the polls and who is on the verge of dropping out while 25% of reports focus on the actual substance of what the candidates stand for.  This year, this trend seems to play out once again.  According to the Shorenstein Center’s report, throughout the invisible primary (the year leading up to the primaries) Hillary Clinton received the most issue coverage with 28%.  In contrast, her Democratic opponent Bernie Sanders received 7% coverage on his issues.  On the Republican side, 13% of the news coverage of Trump was focused on issues, while Ted Cruz (Trump’s biggest Republican competitor) received only 9% coverage of his issue positions.

In addition to the difference between horserace and issue coverage is the difference between positive and negative coverage of the candidates.  According to the same report, 84% of the issue-related coverage of Clinton was negative in tone, while only 17% of Sanders’s coverage was negative.  On the Republican side, we see that 43% of Trump’s issue coverage was negative, compared with 32% negative for Cruz. 

This Chart shows the Percentage of Total Media Coverage Each Candidate Received

An arguably even bigger story from this the “free” advertising candidates receive through media coverage, especially when it is positive.  As the chart above demonstrates, Trump received the most media coverage of any Republican candidate in the 2016 field.  Specifically, Trump receive 34% of the total media coverage of the Republican contests.  Jeb Bush, who received the second most, only received 18% of the media coverage.  Trump received more than two times as much media coverage as Ted Cruz (Trump’s closest competitor), who received only 13% of total media coverage.  What this meant for Trump is that he received roughly $55 million in “free” advertising from this media coverage, compared with the $32.5 million in free advertising Cruz received. 

So, why did Trump receive so much free advertising?  And why was it so favorable compared with his competitors?  The short answer is because he was leading in the polls and thus winning the nomination contest.  As the Shorenstein Center’s report reminds us, covering the horserace means that journalists often phrase their articles in one of four ways: a candidate is "leading," "trailing," "gaining ground," or "losing ground."  Trump started small but quickly rose in the polls.  So, many articles were framed in a way to demonstrate that Trump was indeed "gaining ground" on his competitors and then that he was "leading" the pack of Republican contenders.  What this tells us is that Trump received a lot of positive media coverage.  He was rarely seen as "trailing" or "losing ground."  While many people may remember the more controversial statements uttered by Trump on the campaign trail (think "Build a wall," deport Muslims, women are pigs), these statements did not make up the majority of Trump's coverage.  The chart below depicts the news coverage Trump received.

This chart shows what the media focused on while covering Trump on the campaign trail

So, Trump received a fair amount of positive media coverage because 55% of media coverage focused on his activities, events, polls, and projections.  All of these would give Trump positive coverage because he was ahead in the polls and looked poised to win the nomination. 

Now, what explains the negative coverage of Hillary Clinton?  After all, Clinton was seen as the Democratic frontrunner from the very beginning of the nomination season.  Bernie Sanders was seen as a long-shot candidate compared to Clinton’s establishment background.  So, by coming in a very close second place in Iowa (49.9% to 49.6%) and soundly defeating Clinton in New Hampshire (60% to 38%) Sanders was suddenly seen as a viable contender and a number of news reports covered Sanders as “gaining ground” on Clinton, while Clinton was “losing ground” to Sanders.  So, while Clinton never fully lost the mantle of frontrunner, she did struggle to maintain the air of inevitability that her candidacy had throughout the invisible primary period.  Because expectations for Clinton were incredibly high, when she lost a contest it reverberated through the media as a major blow to her campaign.  In contrast, when Sanders won, the media often focused on growing enthusiasm for his message or increasing angst towards, and distrust of, the establishment.   

So now that the presidential selection process has come to an end and each party has selected a nominee, the focus has already shifted to the general election.  More specifically, the media is currently speculating who each candidate will choose as their running mate (Elizabeth Warren?  Chris Christie?).  Will we see the same patterns we saw in the nomination coverage play out in the general election?  Partially.  The horserace coverage is already starting.  As I write this blog post, depending on which source you look at, Hillary Clinton is leading Trump by 5 points, 10 points, or 12 points.  The horserace coverage will continue until November and will likely increase as we get even closer.  However, what will likely change is which candidate receives positive coverage and which candidate receives negative coverage.  Whichever candidate is leading in the polls will likely get the more positive coverage.  Provided Clinton maintains her lead in the polls, we could be in for a very different type of media environment from now until November. 

To keep up with the election, what the media is reporting, or if you have general questions about the election, the History and Political Science department welcome you to stop by!  We also encourage you to check out our courses in the Fall that are election-focused: Seminar on the Presidency, Political Parties and Interest Groups, and Media and Politics!  All of them should produce lively discussions all semester long!