New York —
As a Democrat who immersed himself in political news during the presidential campaign, Ziad Aunallah has much in common with many Americans since the election. He’s tuned out.
“People are mentally exhausted,” said Aunallah, 45, of San Diego. “Everyone knows what is coming and we are just taking some time off.”
Television ratings — and now a new poll — clearly illustrate the phenomenon. About two-thirds of American adults say they have recently felt the need to limit media consumption about politics and government because of overload, according to the survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Smaller percentages of Americans are limiting their intake of news about overseas conflicts, the economy or climate change, the poll says. Politics stand out.
Election news on CNN and MSNBC was taking up too much of Sam Gude’s time before the election, said the 47-year-old electrician from Lincoln, Nebraska. “The last thing I want to watch right now is the interregnum,” said Gude, a Democrat and no fan of President-elect Donald Trump.
Poll finds more Democrats than Republicans stepping away from news
The poll, conducted in early December, found that about 7 in 10 Democrats say they are stepping back from political news. The percentage isn’t as high for Republicans, who have reason to celebrate Trump’s victory. Still, about 6 in 10 Republicans say they’ve felt the need to take some time off too, and the share for independents is similar.
The differences are far starker for the TV networks that have been consumed by political news.
After election night through Dec. 13, the prime-time viewership of MSNBC was an average of 620,000, down 54% from the pre-election audience this year, the Nielsen company said. For the same time comparison, CNN’s average of 405,000 viewers was down 45%.
At Fox News Channel, a favorite news network for Trump fans, the post-election average of 2.68 million viewers is up 13%, Nielsen said. Since the election, 72% of the people watching one of those three cable networks in the evening were watching Fox News, compared to 53% prior to election day.
A post-election slump for