Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., is the Republican lawmaker whom newspapers mention most often when covering possible GOP contenders for the 2016 presidential elections, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
Christie is followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
The Pew analysis, which is based on LexisNexis data collected from 15 of the top papers in the nation, draws on articles published between Jan. 1 and Sept. 27, 2014.
Unsurprisingly, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the most mentioned Democratic likely for 2016. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is a distant second, followed Vice President Joe Biden and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.
“Christie and Clinton were each the subject of 82 campaign stories linking them to a possible White House run. In 2013, Clinton also topped our list, with 66 stories,” Pew reported.
The report notes that the number of stories about possible Republican 2016 candidates far outweighs the number of stories about possible Democratic candidates.
“There are 11 individual Republicans that have been mentioned in at least 20 stories. The only Democrat other than Clinton to match this attention is Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, with 22 stories,” Pew reported.
“Even Vice President Joe Biden, who has hinted that he would be interested in running, was only mentioned in 18 campaign stories.”
And if it seems like there have been an unusual number of 2016-related stories published recently, you’re not wrong. There has been a lot of speculation in the press.
“In the first nine months of the year, there have been 541 newspaper stories written about the 2016 presidential campaign. That is double the number of stories (271) the 2012 campaign generated during the same time period in 2010,” the research group reported.
And there’s this for additional perspective: “In the first nine months of 2006, there were 460 campaign stories written about the 2008 presidential race. That’s higher than the coverage four years later, when President Obama did not have a challenger. This helps illustrate that in an election cycle with two potentially heated primary seasons (like 2008 and 2016) news coverage increases.”
