UH-OH: Gallup Poll Finds National News Usage Tanking Among Younger Democrats

This is a clear sign that Biden’s presidency is not going as planned. Sara Fischer at Axios reports a new poll from Gallup and the Knight Foundation finds that “younger Democrats are driving a huge decline in national news consumption in the U.S.” This can’t be good for media outlets struggling after the boom times under Trump.

It matters why: This marks the first time that Democrats have reported having less interest than Republicans or independents in news national…

Respondents from all political stripes reported declining interest in national news during the past year. Democrats, however, have the lowest interest with 34% saying that they were paying a great deal more attention to the news in 2021 than the 69% who said the same in November 2020.

It is shocking to see the decline in Democrats between 18 and 34 years old. A quarter (24%) of respondents said that they payed a lot of attention to the national news in 2021 compared with 70% in November 2020. The 35-54 year olds also tuned in significantly.

It is easy to see exactly where Democrats will stop looking:

1. Since Trump lost the election, their terror over Trump has subsided. Fischer notes “Partisans generally tend to tune in more to national news when the opposing party is in office, according to Gallup.” 

2. It is possible that their positivity about Biden, his accomplishments, and Biden has been slipping.Biden is the victim of all this “bad news” and many Democrats want to watch another channel instead. Be aware that Biden’s views are often criticized by many Democrats.

Gallup stated that “Rather than seeing the end of an era, we should be able to see it.” Increase in attention to national news by Republicans since the election of President Biden, we report a marginal decrease. Therefore, other factors may contribute to this drop, such as tuning out of news about COVID or a general sense of news “burnout” after a tumultuous year.”

This could be “tuning-out of news that endlessly repeats hyperbole around January 6 investigations,” as the “news” product frequently tends to closely reflect the talk points and narratives Democrats believe will make them successful. Media seem to suggest that there aren’t any Biden scandals. Only Trump (and his super-Trumper), scandals.