The Influence of Polls on Television News Coverage of Presidential Campaigns

Since the election of Richard Nixon in 1968 to Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, both presidential campaigns and television news have undergone significant changes, perhaps most noticeably in the use of public opinion polls in campaign reporting by the national evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC. The Influence of Polls on Television News Coverage of Presidential Campaigns explores how during the past 50 years the three networks have quadrupled their use of polls during general election campaig