[link removed]

FAIR
View article on FAIR's website ([link removed])
Leading Papers Talked Up Establishment’s Senate Candidates Henry Brannan ([link removed])


[link removed] celebrated dual Georgia Senate race victories this week, which gives them, with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaker vote, a bare majority in the Senate.

But not all Democrats are created equal, and the one-vote margin makes the politics of each individual in that majority more consequential. In 2020, several states witnessed competitive Democratic Senate primary races in which a progressive candidate seriously challenged a candidate further to the right, offering a chance to bring to the Senate more supporters of people-friendly policies like Medicare for All ([link removed]) and the Green New Deal ([link removed]) . In every case, the Democratic establishment (including super PACs like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Senate Majority PAC) threw its considerable resources ([link removed]) behind the non-progressive—and the nation's most influential newspapers helped them tip the scales.

In an examination of New York Times and Washington Post coverage of five competitive Democratic Senate primaries, FAIR found that these papers gave significantly more overall coverage to establishment-backed candidates, and that their analyses echoed the assumptions of electability and experience that propelled those candidacies.

In recent election cycles, many candidates with progressive ([link removed]) or social democratic platforms—most visibly, longstanding senator and two-time presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—have generated strong popular support, and many have been elected to state and national office against well-funded opposition. Despite the growing popularity ([link removed]) of progressive policies within the party, the Democratic establishment has worked to marginalize ([link removed]) this newly energized voting bloc.

To shed light on the role of the national media in these races, FAIR examined Times and Post coverage of five competitive Senate Democratic primaries: Kentucky, Colorado, North Carolina, Texas and Tennessee. We searched each paper’s online archive for stories mentioning at least one of the candidates in the three months leading up to the primary election day in each race.

Competitive Democratic Senate primaries, 2020

We defined an “establishment-backed candidate” as one who received backing (monetary or otherwise) from figures associated with the corporate wing ([link removed]) of the Democratic Party, like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and organizations like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ([link removed]) and Senate Majority PAC ([link removed]) . Progressives were defined by their support for policies like Medicare for All ([link removed]) and the Green New Deal, and backing from progressive groups or politicians like Indivisible ([link removed]) , the Progressive Change Campaign Committee
([link removed]) , Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez.

When papers ran more than one version of the same article, the longer version was included in our count.

Mentions were classified as “brief”—in which the candidate is simply named—or “substantive,” in which the candidate and their politics are at least minimally described.


** By the Numbers
------------------------------------------------------------

Seventy-four articles in the two papers mentioned at least one of the candidates. These pieces included 83 appearances by establishment-backed candidates, with 35 substantive mentions. Progressive candidates, meanwhile, made 55 appearances, 20 of which were substantive.

Candidate Mentions in Senate Democratic Primary Coverage

The papers gave the establishment-backed candidate more overall coverage than the progressive candidate in every race except Texas, where the two candidates received equal amounts, and Tennessee, where the candidates received no coverage.

Substantive coverage followed a similar pattern: The establishment-backed candidates received more in Kentucky, Colorado and North Carolina, though in Texas, the progressive Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez got two substantive mentions to the establishment-backed M.J. Hegar’s one. The skew was particularly pronounced in Colorado, where establishment-backed John Hickenlooper received over three times as many substantive mentions as progressive Andrew Romanoff.

Notably, the only one of the five races that the more progressive candidate won was Tennessee, where Marquita Bradshaw defeated James Mackler ([link removed]) . It was also the only race that went unmentioned by the Times and the Post.

In Hickenlooper’s case, some of the extra coverage may be attributable to local celebrity, as he is a former Colorado governor ([link removed]) and erstwhile 2020 presidential contender ([link removed]) . Other establishment-backed candidates, like Kentucky’s Amy McGrath ([link removed]) and Hegar ([link removed]) in Texas, were more or less manufactured and boosted ([link removed]) by the Democratic establishment looking for corporate-friendly candidates to compete in races.


** Erasing Progressives
------------------------------------------------------------

The imbalanced coverage meant that in many articles, reporters presented a race as if it were already over, or as if the progressive candidate was not a real contender. Twenty-eight of the 74 articles in the study named an establishment candidate but not their progressive opponent. The reverse only happened twice, including a Times article (6/18/20 ([link removed]) ) on reparations for descendants of enslaved people that quoted Romanoff and Kentucky’s Charles Booker, but not their opponents—likely because Romanoff and Booker, unlike their opponents, favor such reparations.
NYT: With Campaigns in Remote Mode, Pandemic Upends Battle for Congress

New York Times (4/5/20 ([link removed]) )

Colorado's Romanoff, in particular, fell victim to this trend, going missing in 15 of the 32 total articles that mention the race. (Hickenlooper was named in all but one of the 32.) Similarly, in Kentucky, Booker was omitted from 14 of the 38 articles. (McGrath was included in all but the previously mentioned article on reparations.)

In an article (4/5/20 ([link removed]) ) about how Covid-19 is changing campaigning, the Times' Carl Hulse spent three paragraphs describing Hickenlooper’s campaign and named the Republican incumbent Cory Gardner twice, yet never mentioned Romanoff, nearly three months before the voters went to the polls.

Two months later, with the primary still underway, Hulse (6/8/20 ([link removed]) ) wrote that Gardner was "likely to face John Hickenlooper, a well-liked former governor,” failing again to mention Romanoff and giving the impression that Hickenlooper's victory was a foregone conclusion. Polls ([link removed]) released at about the same time showed that Hickenlooper’s lead over Romanoff was sizable but shrinking.

Hulse finally named Romanoff in an article on June 27 ([link removed]) , presenting the tightening race as a "dark spot" for Democrats hoping to flip the Senate. Hulse wrote that "Democrats" had believed the race against Gardner “was essentially in the bag” until "Hickenlooper's multiple travails and missteps." Here, "Democrats" clearly means establishment Democrats, erasing the progressives who supported Romanoff and would see the close race as a bright spot.

At the Post, which also gave Hickenlooper more coverage than Romanoff, a piece (6/12/20 ([link removed]) ) about Hickenlooper's "ethics woes" noted that

Democratic campaign operatives said that regardless of the ethics scandal, they were confident Hickenlooper’s widespread name recognition and popularity among voters will ensure that he prevails over Romanoff in the primary, and ultimately, Gardner in the general election.

Of course, media coverage plays a significant role in name recognition and popularity.

The problem was not unique to coverage of the Colorado race. For instance, in a Times article (3/1/20 ([link removed]) ) about the battle for the Senate (also by Hulse), the Texas race was characterized as being Hegar versus a “crowded field,” without naming those in that field with significant popular support—like Tzintzún Ramirez.


** Electability
------------------------------------------------------------

Even when the papers did pay more than passing attention to a challenger, they often still relied on the media gospel (Extra!, 9/92 ([link removed]) , 1–2/95 ([link removed]) , 6/04 ([link removed]) , 7–8/06 ([link removed]) ,1–2/07 ([link removed]) , 12/14 ([link removed]) ; FAIR.org, 11/7/08 ([link removed]) , 3/16/10 ([link removed]) ) that Democrats have to run as centrists to win in a general election.
WaPo: In echo of presidential race, insurgents challenge the establishment in Super Tuesday congressional races

Washington Post (3/1/20 ([link removed]) )

A March 1 ([link removed]) Post article, originally headlined “Echoes of Insurgency, Down Ballots and Across the Aisle,” which mentioned multiple races, both Democratic and Republican, wondered if voters from both parties would “eschew pragmatists and dealmakers for more ideologically driven candidates.” This framing, typical of the coverage, takes for granted that establishment-backed candidates are somehow not ideological, and that progressives cannot be pragmatic or make deals.

In a Times article (3/1/20 ([link removed]) ) the day before on the battle for the Senate, Hulse wrote of the North Carolina primary that “a loss by Mr. Cunningham would be a setback for national Democrats who see him as the strongest challenger to [incumbent Republican senator] Mr. Tillis, a top target.” But the only polls available before the DSCC endorsed Cunningham showed Smith outpolling him (Politifact, 1/10/20 ([link removed]) ); the Times made no mention of that inconvenient data, nor did it quote anyone who saw Smith as the stronger challenger to Tillis.

It's worth highlighting that in the five races we studied, every establishment-backed candidate was white, while only one of the progressives (Romanoff) was. Erasing progressives in the media therefore meant erasing candidates of color. In a lengthy Post feature (2/23/20 ([link removed]) ) on Tzintzún Ramirez, Jenna Johnson revealed the racial undertones of the contests (and the coverage):

Calls for more candidates who look and think like the party's emerging base of young, nonwhite and more liberal voters are inevitably colliding with a desire to win seats and states that have long been held by Republicans but are seen as gettable if candidates appeal to more moderate—and often more white—voters.

It's not clear why looking and thinking like the party's "emerging base" results in "inevitably colliding" with winning Republican-held seats—particularly in the South, where people of color make up a very large potential voting bloc, but have long been marginalized. Non-Latino whites are a shrinking minority ([link removed]) in Texas. Who sees those seats as "gettable" only by appealing to "moderate" white voters? By writing in the passive voice, Johnson presented centrist—and racist—dogma as a universal truth.


** Really Good Résumés
------------------------------------------------------------
NYT: Can Dems Dispatch Mitch?

New York Times (6/17/20 ([link removed]) )

The skewed electability framing extended to the ways the papers at times described the candidate’s characteristics and qualifications. One Times opinion piece by Gail Collins (6/17/20 ([link removed]) ) went as far as to characterize Booker—who is Black and comes from a working-class background—as the “candidate of the Bernie Bros.”

Collins offered a one-line snapshot of each candidate: Booker as the "exciting newcomer who might be able to move the public left," and McGrath as the "moderate with a really good résumé." While some in the establishment might argue with the label "exciting" applied to Booker, it certainly reflected the public sentiment about him in Kentucky, where he surged in polls to tie or lead ([link removed]) the much better-funded McGrath in the lead-up to the primary (Civiqs, 6/13–15/20 ([link removed]) ). But it's harder to justify the label "moderate" as applied to McGrath, who infamously told Morning Joe (MSNBC, 7/9/19 ([link removed]) ) that she was running against Mitch McConnell because
the senator was blocking Trump's agenda.

As for that "really good" résumé, which the Post (6/20/20 ([link removed]) ) also pointed to as having “impressed” national Democrats? The only thing on it that either piece mentioned was McGrath's experience flying combat aircraft—not exactly an obvious prerequisite to representing constituents or governing. (Four of the five establishment-backed candidates touted military backgrounds.) Meanwhile, Booker, a state representative, was the only one of the two who had ever actually won an election ([link removed]) and held office—which would seem like directly relevant experience.

In the end, McGrath lost her Senate race by over 20 percentage points, Hegar by 10 and Cunningham by just shy of 2. The only one of the four establishment-backed candidates who emerged victorious was Hickenlooper, who won by nearly 10 points over the highly unpopular Gardner. It's impossible to say what those results would have looked like with the progressives nominated instead, though Bradshaw lost her race in Tennessee by 27 points. (It’s worth noting the race was always a particular longshot for Democrats, and that Bradshaw raised just over $1 million, in contrast to establishment-backed McGrath's $88 million, Cunningham's $46 million, Hickenlooper's $39 million and Hegar's $24 million—OpenSecrets.org ([link removed]) .) In any case, the establishment candidates certainly didn't make a strong case for their inherent "electability."
Read more ([link removed])

© 2020 Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you signed up for email alerts from
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

Our mailing address is:
FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING
124 W. 30th Street, Suite 201
New York, NY 10001

FAIR's Website ([link removed])

FAIR counts on your support to do this work — please donate today ([link removed]) .

Follow us on Twitter ([link removed]) | Friend us on Facebook ([link removed])

change your preferences ([link removed])
Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp
[link removed]
unsubscribe ([link removed]) .