The goal for the main stream media was simple, reduce the number of people showing up to vote for President Trump in 2020 across the nation? So how well did they do? The excessive negative media coverage, created 12 million more voters than 2016 in the general elections. In 2016, he got around 63M votes, but in 2020 he got 75M. By the 2020 primary, their failure was quite evident to them because, President Trump in his 2020 re-election bid got almost 3 times more votes (18M) than the most famous Democrat President Obama (~6M) in 2012 and yet chose to keep the same path. The main stream media seems to have again helped President Trump in 2020.
So where did President Trump's base grow? Was it only in a few counties RED states that voted overwhelmingly for him or was it all over the US?
Comparing President Trump's 2020 performance with his 2016 at a county level should shed light on it. Based on the 3037 counties data used in the analysis, in 2020 President Trump beat his 2016 performance in 2985 counties only losing in 102 counties. So the 90+% of negative press, Trump-Russia Mueller Investigation non stop coverage for 4 years, the Covid death dashboards published on every major news media for a year, and yet he beats his 2016 performance in 97% of the counties in the USA.
The charts above show the number of counties per state won my President Trump in 2020 over his 2016 run. In 49 counties, the chart on the "counties won" chart shows that, Trump was able to increase his numbers from 2016 in majority of the counties in the country. Only in 18 states as shown in "counties lost" chart, there was at least one or more counties, where his support dropped in 2020 than in 2016. Of the 56 counties in 18 states where his support dropped, states like Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania are missing.
These charts show clearly, that the effort by major news networks effort was not effective in dampening Trump's support. They have to really have to review their approach and content, if they are attempting to change public opinion.
The 2 charts above show the total number of votes lost in 2020 and the percentage of the votes lost by Trump. The biggest vote lost in the counties range between 20,000 vote & 10000 votes in 2 counties which was 91% & 53% drop. The rest of the 54 counties lost under 10K votes in states where the election could not have been altered by that single county. However, Suffolk (NY), Lake(CA) would make an interesting case study for big media to see how these 2 counties showed the impact that they were seeking.
The table above clearly shows how poorly the news media failed at reducing Trump's popularity in the 4 years of his Presidency or the 2020 presidential race. Trumps gains were all over the USA. In more than 50% of his counties of the 3000, he won greater than 20% margin in 15% of the counties and the remaining 30% with 10% of less margin.
Again, in the state of Arizona, in 10 counties he gained 20+% margin, in 3 counties he gained 30+% and in 1 county he gained a 40+%. In Georgia, in 81 counties, he gained 10+% margin, in 39 counties he gained 20+%, in 16 counties he gained less than 10%. In Michigan, in 62 counties, he gained by 10+% and in 9 counties he gained by 20+% and only 3 counties he gained by less than 10%. In Pennsylvania, in 58 counties, he gained by 10% more and in 5 counties he gained 10% less. In Wisconsin, in 61 counties, he gained 10+% and in 3 counties he gained 20+%.
If the media was a hypothetical single large corporation who purpose was to ensure to prevent his support growing, based on President Trump negative coverage through out the 4 years of his presidency, then the 2020 results would had the CEO fired along with the entire top brass and company board of directors. It would seem like it was a failure of massive proportions towards this singular goal.
