The 2024 Election was expected to be a rather ho-hum one, with the top of the ticket touting a rematch of the 2020 players – President Biden and Former President Trump. But the debate on June 27^th kicked off a series of events that wouldn’t even be believed as a plot of an Aaron Sorkin script. Within the last two weeks, we had top Democrats trying to force Biden to step down from the race, an assassination attempt on Trump, the Republican National Convention, the announcement of JD Vance as Trump’s running mate, and a Sunday afternoon shocker as Biden pulled himself from the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who shored up enough delegates to be the presumptive nominee within 24 hours. Let’s look at the last two weeks and what these events might mean for media for the next four months.

Assassination Attempt on Former President Trump

On Saturday, July 13^th during a campaign rally near Butler, PA, there was an assassination attempt made on Trump. The shooting occurred at 612p Eastern while several cable networks were showing the rally live. That coverage immediately pivoted to breaking news coverage and people tuned into their cable network of choice to understand the severity of the situation.

While Fox News had the highest audience at the start of the event, viewers continued to tune in to cable and broadcast networks as the night progressed, culminating in President Biden’s speech at 8p. As previous POVs have mentioned before, people do turn to their trusted channels during breaking news events.

6 p.m.

• FNC — 3,679,413 P2+
• CNN — 1,060,862 P2+
• MSNBC — 702,929 P2+

6-9 p.m.

• FNC — 5,780,000 total viewers
• CNN — 2,126,000 total viewers
• MSNBC — 1,294,000 total viewers

8 p.m.

• FNC — 7,124,000 total viewers
• CNN — 2,800,000 total viewers
• MSNBC — 1,646,000 total viewers
• ABC — 3,970,000 total viewers
• CBS — 3,400,000 total viewers

In response to the seriousness of the moment, Biden immediately began pulling advertising on Saturday evening. This advertising was part of a $50 million investment in battleground states to keep the focus on Trump’s legal woes. Advertising was reinstated later the week of July 15^th during the Republican National Convention.

Republican National Convention

In the aftermath of the shooting, Trump continued riding a wave of good news as not only did his classified documents case get dismissed, but polling showed him leading Biden in swing states. Republicans were in good spirits as they attended the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week.

The 2024 RNC was a clear celebration of the Republican Party. There was renewed confidence for both the party and their victory in November. It was also very clear that the GOP is now fully the party of Trump, who emerged as a “fighter” after the assassination attempt mere days before.

JD Vance, a Junior Senator from Ohio, became Trump’s running mate only 20 minutes prior to the announcement being made on social media. A best-selling author, 39-year-old Vance is now one of the youngest men to be a nominee for the VP. He’s considered an heir-apparent to the MAGA movement and his selection as VP nominee shows the confidence that Trump and the GOP have in winning it all. Vance isn’t from a swing state. He doesn’t bring a different view to the ticket. The ticket isn’t reaching out to different voter demographics. They believe MAGA is enough to win.

Numbers surrounding the convention were impressive. An average of 19MM P2+ tuned into the TV coverage over the four-day event.

Some important takeaways are that the audience continues to be overwhelmingly older, with 75% in the A55+ demo, while only 4% of the audience was A18-34. Previous POVs have brought up how older voters are watching Linear TV for their political news. While the Nielsen numbers above do not include streaming, the expectation is that the A18-34 viewer numbers would increase slightly, but not enough to detract from the overwhelming percentage of older viewers. In addition, the 2024 numbers are down slightly from the 2020 average of 19.39 million P2+ viewers.

Biden Out – Harris In

While the Republicans were riding high during their convention and their expectation that Trump and Vance would sail through to victory in November, the Democrats were in freefall after Biden’s disappointing debate in June and increasing concerns about his age. During the three weeks following the debate, criticism came from lawmakers, donors, and prominent figures within the Democratic party for Biden to step aside to give the ticket a chance to win against Trump. The criticism came from seeing consistent decreases in polls not only for the Presidential ticket but also for significant down-ballot races. Candidates live and die by the polls, and with a race that was already tight, seeing polling drop even a point or two is a cause for concern. With both parties desperate to control the House and Senate, down-ballot races are vital and cannot be taken for granted.

Sunday, July 21^st at 146p, Biden posted an announcement on X (formerly Twitter) announcing he would no longer be running for re-election and his subsequent message on X was that he was endorsing his Vice President Kamala Harris.

While the news was increasingly becoming expected, the time and delivery were not, catching some of the news media off guard. Between 2-4p Eastern, nearly 12 million viewers tuned in to watch special coverage of Biden’s announcement across ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC.

Almost immediately, voters began donating to the newly created Harris Presidential Campaign, raising more than $81 million in the first 24 hours and over $100 million in the first 48 hours. This includes contributions from over 1.1 million unique donors, 62% of them being first-time donors in this election cycle. In addition, Harris is expected to inherit Biden’s $91 million war chest, leaving her with a sizeable amount to begin her run towards the presidency.

Democrats went from a party in chaos to a rapidly unified force. Sunday afternoon, news was coming through various channels with endorsements from Democratic representatives and Governors. States pledged their delegates to Harris. The party became energized overnight and the Republican’s expectation to sail through to the election was squashed.

What’s Next?

Just when you thought the summer was going to be quiet, July barreled in and we’re in a whole new ballgame. What is next? We are six weeks away from the opening of the political window and there’s a lot that will be coming down the pike.

The next big event is the Democratic National Convention, which will be held in Chicago from August 19-22. Currently the delegate breakout has been confirmed to Harris, but there is always a chance for convention shenanigans. At or around the convention, she will name her pick for VP and advertising will gear up.

Between the $91 million war chest from Biden and the significant donations that have been made over the last few days ($100 million and counting), the Harris team is in very good shape to begin flooding the marketplace with advertising. Add in potential Super PAC money and Harris will work to make up for lost time. Expect heavy Linear broadcast buys to start hitting the airwaves – even as soon as during the Olympics. Traditional media is still the lifeblood of a political media campaign, with 71.9% of the budget being spent on traditional media. But as previous POVs mentioned, more dollars are being spent digitally. Especially now. A18-34 are now in play. Women are going to be a huge focus for targeting, especially because of the Dobbs decision. Black, Asian, and Latino voters will be targeted. The Harris team is going to reach out to those who have become energized by the Democrat’s pick and will find them where they are.

On the flip side, there has been very little advertising coming through from the Trump team for the national race. Remember above when the Trump team believed being MAGA was enough? They’ll need to change their strategy to compete with the new candidate, which will mean they need to up their advertising game sooner rather than later.

Get ready. This is the start of political media for the Presidential, Senate, and House races taking over local media inventory in the following swing states:

While all states will have some kind of political advertising, not every state will see a windfall. The states above will need to plan for a massive influx of political spend, while advertisers need to be ready to pivot to different plans if necessary. There are 98 days until the 2024 Election and the rules just changed.