This post is a follow-on to a similar post in July mostly in order to update data trends. Please refer to the July post for further information.
In July, we highlighted the fact that Alexa site rankings showed conservative-leaning news / opinion sites gaining more than liberal-leaning ones. At that time, web traffic implied that enthusiasm seemed to be on the side of conservatives. Updated data depicts a continuation of this trend.
Liberal-Centric Sites
According to Alexa rankings, liberal-leaning news and opinion sites have, on average, seen a decline in relative rank from June 1, 2020. The fact that this deteriorating trend is occuring going into the fall and election-day should be a major red flag.
Table 1: Alexa Site Rankings for Liberal-Centric Sites on June 1, 2020 and August 26, 2020, Percent Change of those Rankings and the Direction
| Liberal-Centric Sites | 1-Jun-20 | 26-Aug-20 | Change | Direction |
| FiveThirtyEight | 2674 | 1629 | -39% | Improve |
| Daily Kos | 5868 | 4979 | -15% | Improve |
| Slate | 2746 | 2392 | -13% | Improve |
| Salon | 4108 | 3640 | -11% | Improve |
| The New Republic | 27398 | 25184 | -8% | Improve |
| MSNBC | 3319 | 3315 | 0% | Improve |
| CNN | 76 | 76 | 0% | |
| CBS News | 1286 | 1316 | 2% | Deteriorate |
| Washington Post | 172 | 177 | 3% | Deteriorate |
| Jacobin Magazine | 25739 | 26704 | 4% | Deteriorate |
| NYTimes | 82 | 88 | 7% | Deteriorate |
| Mother Jones | 11492 | 12555 | 9% | Deteriorate |
| Think Progress | 81833 | 89507 | 9% | Deteriorate |
| NPR | 501 | 551 | 10% | Deteriorate |
| New Yorker | 2311 | 2733 | 18% | Deteriorate |
| The Nation | 16579 | 19614 | 18% | Deteriorate |
| NBC News | 551 | 693 | 26% | Deteriorate |
| The Intercept | 6926 | 8969 | 29% | Deteriorate |
| The Atlantic | 1191 | 1730 | 45% | Deteriorate |
| Vox | 936 | 1963 | 110% | Deteriorate |
Source: Alexa and ZettaCap Note: a negative change means the ranking is improving, so a negative % change is better than a positive.
The overwhelming trend is one of deterioration for liberal-leaning sites.
Conservative-Centric Sites
The reverse trend is occurring for conservative-leaning sites. This is what we consider the norm prior to an election. For the most part, we would expect there to be an increase in web traffic to political news and opinion sites in the run-up to an important national election.
Table 2: Alexa Site Rankings for Conservative-Centric Sites on June 1, 2020 and August 26, 2020, Percent Change of those Rankings and the Direction
| Conservative-Centric Sites | 1-Jun-20 | 26-Aug-20 | Change | Direction |
| The Gateway Pundit | 9,395 | 1,038 | -89% | Improve |
| OANN | 36,379 | 17,661 | -51% | Improve |
| PJ Media | 12,846 | 7,384 | -43% | Improve |
| Daily Wire | 5,429 | 3,174 | -42% | Improve |
| The Blaze | 5,654 | 3,363 | -41% | Improve |
| Hotair | 17,903 | 11,946 | -33% | Improve |
| Twitchy | 20,106 | 14,399 | -28% | Improve |
| Free Beacon | 39,308 | 28,332 | -28% | Improve |
| Drudge Report | 1,089 | 793 | -27% | Improve |
| Red State | 11,190 | 8,626 | -23% | Improve |
| Townhall | 11,672 | 9,081 | -22% | Improve |
| Newsmax | 6,516 | 5,095 | -22% | Improve |
| Zero Hedge | 1,639 | 1,413 | -14% | Improve |
| Fox News | 247 | 215 | -13% | Improve |
| True Pundit | 58,508 | 51,245 | -12% | Improve |
| Breitbart | 268 | 235 | -12% | Improve |
| Western Journal | 632 | 570 | -10% | Improve |
| Washington Examiner | 7,287 | 7,316 | 0% | Deteriorate |
| Daily Caller | 918 | 971 | 6% | Deteriorate |
| Wall Street Journal | 398 | 429 | 8% | Deteriorate |
Source: Alexa and ZettaCap Note: a negative change means the ranking is improving, so a negative % change is better than a positive.
In contrast to the liberal-leaning sites, Table 2 shows that many of the primary conservative-leaning sites are attracting higher traffic.
Again, going into an important national election, we would generally expect sites that offer political and election commentary to receive more traffic.
Consolidated Rankings
Averaging the site rankings provides an estimate of the overall trends.
Table 3: Average Alexa Rankings of Liberal and Conservative-Leaning Sites on June 1, 2020 and August 26, 2020
| 1-Jun-20 | 26-Aug-20 | |
| Average Liberal-Leaning Ranking | 9,789 | 10,391 |
| Average Conservative-Leaning Ranking | 12,369 | 8,664 |
Source: Alexa and ZettaCap
Again, a decreasing ranking shows improvement. Table 3 shows that conservative-leaning sites improving while showing liberal-leaning sites deteriorating. Ironically, the averages (of those depicted in Table 1 and 2) cross from June 1 to late August. In other words, in early June sites considered liberal-leaning had a better average rank whereas by late August conservative-leaning sites had better rankings.
Implications
Democrats do not appear to be as enthusiastic going into the fall. The fact that the Democratic National Convention just occurred and that web traffic to liberal-leaning sites continues to be weak should be considered a major red flag for the current mainstream election forecast which clearly predict a relatively easy Biden win.