Democrats have been the media darlings of the White House race recently: Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois in particular have fixated journalists drawn to the tone and drama of their rivalry.
The Republicans aren’t out of the spotlight yet, however. Overall, they generated more press than Democrats last week, “a rare occurrence in this campaign season,” according to an analysis released yesterday by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ).
The Grand Old Party squeaked by the competition. The study found that Republicans garnered 45 percent of the total number of campaign stories that ran in print or broadcast or online from Jan. 14 to Jan. 20, compared with 40 percent that focused on the Democrats.
“Certainly, the broad trend is that the Democrats have gotten more coverage, in part because their campaigns got under way earlier, and there is the novelty of Clinton versus Obama,” said PEJ Associate Director Mark Jurkowitz. “But these results tell us that this trend could change.”
He cites Mike Huckabee for distracting the press from John Edwards, thus adding more heft to Republican coverage.
“Despite complaints from the Edwards campaign, the media — who apparently consider Huckabee a more viable contender than Edwards — lavished much more attention on the former Republican governor of Arkansas than on the ex-Democratic senator from North Carolina,” the study said.
Mr. Huckabee got more than twice as much coverage actually, featured in 14 percent of the stories, compared with 6 percent for Mr. Edwards.
The horse race may have reached a crossroads, of sorts.
“In some ways, the press has already winnowed down the Democratic field to just Clinton-Obama. There may be more action now on the Republican side of things,” Mr. Jurkowitz said, citing the keen contest between former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
“After his Jan. 8 win in New Hampshire, McCain was the leading Republican newsmaker. When it was Romney’s turn to salvage his candidacy a week later in Michigan, he became the hottest commodity. Winning, it seems, is the best strategy for getting press attention,” the study said.
Despite Republican wrangling, the two Democratic leaders still lead in the daily press derby, however. The study found that Mrs. Clinton was featured in 29 percent of the campaign stories, and Mr. Obama in 28 percent. Mr. Romney and Mr. McCain warranted 25 percent and 23 percent, respectively. Republican hopeful Rudolph W. Giuliani weighed in with 4 percent.
The former New York mayor, who mostly skipped the early votes in favor of a “big-state strategy” that starts in Florida next week, most likely will have a “surge” of interest, Mr. Jurkowitz predicted, creating a four-way race, at least for the time being.
“We’ll see more press coverage on the GOP side because the field of four is simply bigger than just two Democrats,” he said.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.