In a new working paper, @ellliottt, @matteopins, @sergallet, and I examine the role of Fox News Channel on U.S. Elections. We show that Fox has helped Republican candidates in elections across levels of U.S. government over the past decade. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
To approximate a natural experiment where some counties are randomly exposed to more Fox News, we focus on variation in the channel number -- i.e., when it has a lower number (e.g. 20), people watch Fox more often than when it has a higher channel number (e.g. 80).
Consistent with prior work on Fox News (e.g. @gregmartinphd), we find that Fox boosted Republicans in recent presidential elections. A one SD decrease in FNC channel position increased Trump's vote share by .6 percentage points in 2016/2020 (enough to tip several close states).
We also examine the effect of Fox on Senate, House, and governor elections. The effects in down-ballot elections are increasingly similar to those in presidential elections. These down-ballot effects likely reflect the growing nationalization of U.S. elections.
The uniformity of Fox New’s effect on elections across offices suggests that it is not simply influencing views about particular candidates. Instead, the mechanism for Fox's electoral effects appears to at least partially be that it is shifting American's Party ID & ideology.
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