Right-wing podcasters are talking about Donald Trump less and less, a bombshell new analysis has uncovered.
A review of nearly 70,000 hours of conservative podcasts by The Wall Street Journal found substantial drops in mentions of the president, who has long operated under the mantra that all attention—even the bad—is ultimately good.
Around the 2024 presidential election, Trump’s name peaked at nearly 40 mentions per hour on conservative podcasts. By the start of the Iran war in late February, the average was just under 20. Currently, it is about 12, meaning name-drops have fallen nearly 70 percent since Trump’s reelection.
The Journal’s tally doesn’t even include right-wing podcasters who mention Trump’s name in a negative context. Tucker Carlson is perhaps the most notable conservative commentator who publicly split with the president, citing the Iran war.
The data comes as some Republican candidates, aware of Trump’s poor polling on affordability and the Iran war, have begun to distance themselves from him. Trump-endorsed Florida gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds, for instance, scrubbed the president’s name from his campaign website. A Republican congressional candidate in Kentucky has made a similar change.
Meanwhile, election forecasters have largely been shifting races in Democrats’ favor. On Wednesday, the Cook Political Report moved the Senate contests in Georgia, Kansas, and South Carolina away from Republicans. The day prior, Fox News Power Rankings moved Georgia and Kansas away from the GOP as well—along with 15 House races. Democrats also hold a substantial edge on the generic congressional ballot.
Amid these headwinds, Trump has pleaded for voters’ support. The 80-year-old urged them to “pretend I’m on the ballot,” and essentially offered a bribe of $5,000 should the GOP hold each chamber.
While Trump has been a less frequent topic of conversation in conservative podcasts, that’s not the case on the liberal side, according to the Journal.
After using its in-house artificial intelligence tool to track how often the president’s name appears on left-wing podcasts, the Journal found that he has remained fairly steady, being mentioned around 35 to 38 times each hour.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast. A spokesperson told the Journal that left-leaning podcasters continued to discuss Trump in order to distract from Democratic candidates’ records.
In the space that Trump once occupied in the MAGA podcast world, the Journal notes that two main topics have emerged. One is Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, who has formed a formidable challenge to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. A Maris Poll released Wednesday showed Talarico at 50 percent, six points ahead of Trump-endorsed Paxton.
A Democrat has not won a statewide election in Texas since 1994.
The other topic filling the void was the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts woman who killed her three children but pleaded not guilty on the grounds of insanity. A mistrial was called in early September due to a hung jury.
