More Americans than four years ago are following the presidential election closely, and many say they already are worn out by the media's coverage of this year's expected race between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, according to the latest Pew Research Center survey.
A 58% share of the respondents say they are following news about the presidential candidates very or fairly closely. Another 28% say they aren't following the election too closely, and 13% say they aren't following it at all, according to the poll.
In April 2020, 52% said they were closely following election news. That percentage grew to 75% in October 2020.
Among political party members, Republicans and independents who lean toward the GOP (64%) are slightly more likely than Democrats and Democrat leaners (58%) to say they are closely following this year's election news.
The Pew Research Center survey also found that 62% of respondents say they already are worn out by so much coverage of the campaign and candidates. Another 35% say they like seeing a lot of this coverage.
In the past two presidential election years, the amount of people saying they felt worn out did not reach a similar percentage until June and July 2016 (59%) and October 2020 (61%).
Republicans (58%) are slightly less likely than Democrats (66%) to say they are worn out by election coverage, the Pew survey found. Conservative Republicans (55%) are less likely than moderate or liberal Republicans (65%) to feel worn out.
The survey found that Americans following election news closely are less likely to be worn out by the coverage. The results showed that 4 in 10 people who say they follow election news very closely also say they are worn out by the coverage. Meanwhile, 77% of those who say they don't follow it closely at all also say they are worn out.
The Pew Research Center survey questions did not mention the candidates or campaigns by name.
In terms of how they get their election news, 57% Americans say they happen to come across it as opposed to 42% saying they are looking for it.
Only a quarter of Americans ages 18 to 29 say they mostly get political news because they are looking for it, compared with 60% of those 65 and older.
The Pew Research Survey was conducted April 8-14 among 8,709 U.S. adults.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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