The Pew-Knight Initiative supports new research on how Americans absorb civic information, form beliefs and identities, and engage in their communities.

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. Knight Foundation is a social investor committed to supporting informed and engaged communities.

Nine-in-ten news influencers mentioned Trump and 86% mentioned Harris by name in at least one post during the weeks we studied in the summer and fall of 2024.

Yet twice as many posts mentioned Trump: 12% of all posts from news influencers during this period mentioned him, compared with 6% that mentioned Harris. (This pattern holds even when we exclude the first week in the study period, at the end of which Joe Biden ended his candidacy.)

Were news influencers more critical or supportive of the candidates?

We also looked at whether influencers were supportive, critical or neutral in their posts about the candidates. Influencers were considered “supportive” of a candidate if they had twice as many posts that were supportive of that candidate as posts that were critical of them (and vice versa to be considered “critical”).

About four-in-ten news influencers who mentioned Trump or Harris were more critical (42% for each) than supportive in their posts about the candidate. About a quarter were more supportive of each (28% for Trump and 24% for Harris).

Twice as many posts from news influencers about Harris were critical than were supportive (38% vs. 19%). In contrast, posts about Trump were more equally split (31% critical vs. 27% supportive).

How did left- and right-leaning news influencers discuss the candidates?

Partisanship is often a

During the 2024 election season, the majority of posts by news influencers that mentioned either Trump or Harris were posted on X, formerly known as Twitter (79%). No other site produced more than 10% of posts by news influencers about either candidate.

Almost half of the posts on X that mentioned either candidate (48%) were posted by right-leaning news influencers, while only 28% came from left-leaning influencers.

The posts mentioning Harris on the site were more than twice as likely to be critical as supportive (38% vs. 17%). Posts mentioning Trump were more evenly split (28% critical vs. 27% supportive).

In contrast, TikTok had the highest share of posts mentioning either candidate from left-leaning news influencers – 45%, or nearly a mirror image of X. The posts mentioning Harris there were a roughly even mix of critical and supportive (31% vs. 35%), but the posts mentioning Trump were overwhelmingly more critical (54% critical vs. 19% supportive).

Did news influencers connected to news organizations discuss the candidates differently than those without news backgrounds?

The news influencers we analyzed in this study are mostly voices from outside of the newsroom: About three-quarters (77%) have no past or present affiliation with a news organization.

Before the election, news influencers with a connection to the news industry tended to be more critical than supportive of both candidates. But they were more likely to take a side when discussing Trump, while the largest share of influencers who mentioned Harris were generally neutral.

Meanwhile, news influencers without news industry connections were generally more critical than supportive of Harris. They were more evenly split in their posts that mentioned Trump, although a slightly larger share were critical than were supportive of him.

How did the discussion change after the election?

As polls closed and Americans learned the results, news influencers became less critical of both candidates and more supportive of the new president.

In the week of Nov. 5-11 (including Election Day and the next six days), 36% of news influencers who mentioned Harris were critical of her. That was a drop of 6 percentage points from the lead-up to the election. For Trump, 24% of those who mentioned him were critical after the election – a drop of 18 points.

Few (9%) were generally supportive of Harris after her loss, while the share who expressed support for Trump increased slightly, from 28% to 35%.

Left-leaning news influencers were far less likely after the election than before it to be supportive of Harris. While 75% were supportive in the weeks before the election, that dropped to 31% after the election. In contrast, right-leaning news influencers were about as supportive of Trump after the election (72%) as before (69%).

After the election, left- and right-leaning news influencers also became less critical of the opposing candidate. About six-in-ten left-leaning news influencers were generally critical of Trump after the election (61%), and an identical share of right-leaning influencers were generally critical of Harris. This was a more than 20-point drop from before the election.