AI reveals how Kamala Harris has more positive headlines over Trump
It's official: Joe Biden's decision to step aside in favor of Kamala Harris really has generated a surge in positive headlines for the Democratic Party's campaign, according to an AI-driven analysis of U.S. media coverage. The study of 130,231 headlines from 550 news outlets over the past three months bears out Republican griping that Harris has been getting an easy ride in the media.
Although there is a spike for Trump's 'sentiment' rating after he was shot, that was quickly replaced by a surge in positive feelings for Harris. It reflects in part the fact that she has gone from running mate to top-of-the-ticket, said Wilson Chan, chief executive of Permutable AI, which carried out the analysis.
'We all thought that the assassination attempt was going to strengthen his hold but that's we don't see that to be the case. It's kind of plateauing, whereas Kamala Harris her sentiment is actually increasing through time. And it's not only increasing. We saw an explosion in volumes for the past two or three weeks.' His company's AI technology provides real-time 'sentiment analysis' of thousands of companies.
Switching it to look at the two candidates in the US election was simple, he said. The algorithm assigns a score of 0 (negative) to 100 (most positive) for each headline associated with their name. For Harris, recent negative headlines contained suggestions that it was bad for the party to change candidate so late in the race, or that her policies or values were unknown.
For example, this headline in the Arizona Daily Sun scored only four points: 'Bad policies, not gender, will cost Kamala Harris the presidency.' 'Kamala Harris focusing on final contenders for her VP pick, sources say' (CBS News) was judged neutral, scoring 50 points.
And a New York Times headline, 'Kamala Harris Rapidly Picks Up Democratic Support as 2024 Race Is Reborn,' scored a whopping 97 points.
A plot of the results reveals that Harris has generally maintained a higher score than Trump for the past three months, even though he generated a much higher volume of traffic. He surged when a sniper's bullet grazed his ear at a rally in Pennsylvania.
But his lead was short-lived. When Biden stepped aside and his party quickly fell into line before Harris, her sentiment rating exploded, quickly overtaking Trump's score. 'She maintains a comfortable lead in terms of sentiment,' said Chan. 'And the volumes will be here to stay. We expect there to be persistent volume because she is now the leader of the party.'
The analysis can also be used to identify which news organizations give which candidates an easier ride. It is no great surprise to see that Harris fares well with the New York Times (with a sentiment score of about 55 to her opponent's 49) while Trump gets a 49 with Fox News, compared with his opponent's score of less than 46.
The overall results reflect a good two weeks for Harris. Not only has she clinched the nomination, but she has attracted record levels of donations and eased ahead of Trump in FiveThirtyEight's rolling average of opinion polls.
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