Americans say keeping up with key news topics is crucial. But fewer say they’re highly informed themselves
Democrats and Republicans broadly show similar patterns in how they evaluate the importance of staying informed about various topics.
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Americans’ top sources of political news ahead of the 2024 election
Among those who listed a main source of political news, six-in-ten say that their source is part of the “mainstream media.”
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More than half of Americans are following election news closely, and many are already worn out
More than half of Americans (58%) say they are following news about candidates for the 2024 presidential election very or fairly closely.
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Americans Paid Close Attention as Election Returns Came In
As election returns rolled in – albeit more slowly than in recent years – Americans were tuning in closely. They also, for the most part, gave their news sources positive marks for the coverage of the returns, though Republicans were less likely to do so than Democrats.
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Two-thirds of U.S. adults say they’ve seen their own news sources report facts meant to favor one side
59% of Americans say made-up information that is intended to mislead causes a “great deal” of confusion about the 2020 presidential election.
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Americans Plan To Follow Election Returns Closely; Biden Supporters More Confident Their News Sources Will Make Right Call
Biden supporters are more likely than Trump supporters to be confident their news sources will make the right call in announcing a winner. And partisans remain worlds apart on how well the U.S. has controlled the coronavirus outbreak.
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Political Divides, Conspiracy Theories and Divergent News Sources Heading Into 2020 Election
Republicans are about four times as likely as Democrats to say voter fraud has been a major issue with mail-in ballots.
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A look at the Americans who believe there is some truth to the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was planned
Most Americans (71%) have heard of a conspiracy theory that alleges that powerful people intentionally planned the coronavirus outbreak.
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Americans are following news about presidential candidates much less closely than COVID-19 news
With Election Day six months away, 52% of Americans are paying fairly close or very close attention to news about the presidential candidates.
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SXSW 2020 Online Session: Misinformation and the 2020 U.S. Election
Amy Mitchell (Pew Research Center), Philip Howard (University of Oxford), Jane Lytvynenko (Buzzfeed News) and Lori Robertson (Factcheck.org) discuss misinformation during the coronavirus outbreak, and ahead of the 2020 presidential election, as part of SXSW 2020’s virtual sessions.
