Democratic pollster Molly Murphy told Hill.TV on Friday that the size of the 2020 Democratic presidential field is going to put the news media in a bind, forcing news outlets to pick and choose who and what to cover.
“You’ve got the media that is going to struggle to equally cover this entire field. They have to make choices about which rallies you attend, which town halls you focus on,” Murphy, a partner at ALG Research, told host Jamal Simmons on “What America’s Thinking.”
“They, more than a voter, are going to look at money, look at the polling, look at the debate performance and decide who are we going to cover in larger measure,” she continued. “How do we weed this down? And they, frankly, have a lot of control about what the voters follow, and where the eyeballs go.”
The pollster’s comments come a day after former Vice President Joe Biden officially jumped into the White House race, joining a sprawling field of more than 20 Democratic candidates vying to win the party’s nomination next year.
The crowded field has forced candidates who already have high name recognition to work to garner media coverage as part of an effort to break away from the pack.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has trailed in the polls, made headlines last week when she became the first Democratic White House candidate to say that the House should begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump.
She was soon followed by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro and Wayne Messam (D), the mayor of Miramar, Fla.
— Julia Manchester
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