Media Coverage of U.S. Elections: Persistence of Tradition

During the last seven months of the 2004 American presidential election, public support for candidates in polls resembled three waves rolling gently between three percentage points advantage for each candidate. The tops and bottoms closely followed the publication of the Abu Ghraib prison photos, the two party conventions, the Swift Boat attack ads against Kerry, and the debates. ¹ The campaign attracted levels of attention rivaled over the last fifty years only by the 1992 election. About 84% of Americans reported being at least somewhat interested in the campaign (American National Election Studies, 2007). The election ended with the winning margin of 2.46 percentage points, the fifth smallest in post World War II elections, and the 60.7% turnout, the largest since the sixties.