Covering the First Horserace: The 2020 Presidential Nomination Process

• In Event: Parties and the Media: New Research and Directions for Study

Abstract

Traditional news media sources fall back on a few main tropes when describing presidential nomination contests. This paper systematically assesses the use of two of these tropes: the divide between “establishment” and “outsider” candidates; and the discussion of candidate “electability.” Using several news databases, I compare the use of these terms in the coverage of the crowded 2020 Democratic nomination contest to coverage of the 2016 and 2012 presidential primaries. The results suggest some continuity and some change. Covering the 2020 race, journalists were more critical in their treatment of the concept of electability, noting its application to the race and gender of the candidates. However, media coverage of primary debates, often framing intra-party disagreements as clashes between “establishment” and “activists,” was similar in the 2016 and 2020 cycles. The paper concludes that some of the common concepts used by traditional media to describe the dynamics of nomination contests obscure how power flows within political parties rather than illuminating these processes.

Author

• Julia Rezazadeh Azari, Marquette University