Online Political News Audience Doubles One President Later

During Bill Clinton’s final presidential campaign, only 4% of Americans went online for political news. When George W. Bush’s first ran for president fewer than one-in-five Americans (18%) were getting political news on the internet. But last fall 44% of Americans got political news online, double the number who used the internet for political news in 2000. In fact, the internet is now on par with newspapers as a major source of campaign news for Americans. A quarter of all adults (26%) got most of their election news from the internet, compared with 28% who got their election news from newspapers. Fully 60% of Americans who use the internet got political news online in 2008. Among this group, 12% logged online every day for their political news fix and 7% did so multiple times over the course of a typical day. Read More