Donald Trump has nothing left to gain from media coverage

[Commentary] A number of pundits, political scientists, and politicians have attributed Donald Trump’s lead in the polls to the media’s incessant coverage of his candidacy. This claim undoubtedly has some truth. Had Trump’s candidacy been covered in only a perfunctory fashion, it seems unlikely that he would have soared so quickly to a lead in national polls and many state polls. But our new research suggests that we should not be too quick in attributing Trump’s success to his ability to dominate the news cycle. Moreover, the media may be more important to several other candidates than to Trump.

What we find is striking: increases in Trump’s media coverage do drive Google searches, but not his poll numbers. And neither do his poll numbers appear to drive media coverage, as we might think it should if the media focuses on traditional horserace metrics. For other candidates, the story is much closer to our traditional expectations for candidate media coverage. This is particularly true for candidates who were not as well-known as Trump going into the race. We suspect that media coverage of Trump has outpaced his levels of support. The media continues covering Trump at very high rates, but there are no more sympathetic voters for him to reach. A bump in media coverage drives more interest for him in general, but does not seem to convert supporters. Contrast this with candidates like Dr Ben Carson, who does gain significantly from bumps in media coverage because he has not yet reached the same level of media saturation.

[Kevin Reuning and Nick Dietrich are PhD students in the Department of Political Science at Penn State University]