2018 Elections

Photo Gage Skidmore/Flickr Women candidates more positive; Democratic women laser focused on health (MIDDLETOWN, CT) September 13, 2018 - Pro-Trump messaging in political ads continued through August. Almost 36,000 ad airings in U.S. House and U.S. Senate races mentioned Donald Trump in a positive fashion between August 1 and September 3, which is 13.4 percent of all ad airings in those races. By contrast, 4.8 percent of ads mention Trump in a negative light (Table 1). As Figure 1 shows, this embrace of Trump is unlike past midterms. Trump has seen a greater percentage of positive mentions than any other…

(MIDDLETOWN, CT) September 6, 2018 - The Wesleyan Media Project is releasing its second post in a series of regularly updated overviews of issue mentions in federal races by state. Below we show the number of ads that aired in House and Senate races in each state from August 1, 2018, to August 31, 2018. Read our other Issue Spotlights: Issue Spotlight (1/1/2017 - 7/31/2018) Issue Spotlight (9/1/2018 - 9/30/2018) We break down the percentage of ads mentioning six key issues tracked by the WMP. For example, over 16,000 ads aired in federal races in Arizona last month. A majority…

(MIDDLETOWN, CT) August 29, 2018 - The Wesleyan Media Project is releasing the first post in a series of regularly updated overviews of issue mentions in federal races by state. Below we show the number of ads that aired in House and Senate races from January 1, 2017 to July 31, 2018. We break down the percentage of ads mentioning six key issues tracked by the WMP. For example, from January 1, 2017 through the end of July, 19,926 ads have aired in federal races in Arizona. An overwhelming majority (59 percent) of those ads mentioned the issue of healthcare,…

But a Comparison of FB and TV Suggests the Emphasis from Senate Candidates is Different Across Platforms (MIDDLETOWN, CT) August 1, 2018 - Mentions of Donald Trump are quite common in Facebook advertising from many Senate candidates, according to a new analysis. The Wesleyan Media Project is pleased to provide our first comparison (and we believe the first systematic comparison) of ad content on television with ad content on Facebook. The analysis focuses on unique ads posted or aired this year by several candidates running for U.S. Senate. Wesleyan Media Project staff analyzed Facebook creatives captured and reported by Pathmatics…