---
title: "Online Political News Audience Doubles One President Later"
description: "The number of Americans using the internet to get political news has more than doubled since the 2000 election."
date: "2009-05-12"
authors:
  - name: "Russell Heimlich"
    job_title: "Former web developer"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/russell-heimlich/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2009/05/12/online-political-news-audience-doubles-one-president-later/"
---

# 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](https://www.pewresearch.org/pubs/1192/internet-politics-campaign-2008)