Media Favoritism and Presidential Nominations: Reviving the Direct Effects Model

This article explores the relationships among media favoritism, media reception, and candidate preference in the 2000 Democratic and Republican presidential nomination campaigns. Content analysis revealed significant media favoritism toward the candidacy of John McCain in the Republican contest but relatively balanced coverage of the Democratic contest. Accordingly, our empirical models reveal that media reception was substantially associated with a preference for McCain over Bush, but was not a consistent predictor in the Democratic race. But even more impressive (and surprising) were the relationships between listening to talk radio and candidate preferences, even among Democrats. Listening to Rush Limbaugh was strongly associated with preference for Bush among Republican primary voters, and for Bradley among Democratic primary voters. These collective results lend support to a classic interpretation of direct media effects, a perspective that had been largely abandoned in contemporary voting models.