CECE conducted a survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,500 adults in the US through YouGov during the two weeks before the 2026 mid-term election. We once again asked respondents about their personal media diets, having them select all sources they regularly get news from. The tool below shows the responses in aggregate and separated out by certain demographic categories.
The most popular news sources were Fox News and CNN, with 35% of all US adults reporting regularly getting news from each source. For Republicans, 59% of respondents reporting getting their news from Fox News and 26% from CNN. Conversely, 52% of Democrats reported getting their news from CNN and 21% from Fox News. CNN was rated highest with all age groups, except 65+ where Fox News was the top source. ABC was the third highest with 26% of respondents. NBC, CBS, and New York Times all rated similarly among all US adults (25%, 24%, and 23%, respectively). Five news sources came in with under 3% of respondents reporting- Tucker Carlson Network, Breitbart, Telemundo, Joe Rogan Experience, and Univision (1%, 2%, 2%, and 2%, respectively).
For respondents aged 18-29, media consumption fell into three categories: the most common responses were CNN and Fox News (52% and 45%, respectively), the second most common was the New York Times (32%), and the other media outlets fell into a third least-popular category (with the BBC coming in fourth at 23%).
In the visualization below, we compare our 2026 survey data to those collected for our 2025 national survey a year ago. Overall, Joe Rogan Experience and Tucker Carlson Network saw the largest decreases in usage (-4% and -3%). These decreases were largely driven by changes in Republican respondents, with a decrease of -6% for the Joe Rogan Experience and -10% for the Tucker Carlson Network. Among Democrats, the Tucker Carlson Network only decreased by -0.3% and the Joe Rogan Experience by -2%. The New York Times saw the largest overall increase in usage (+4%), with +8% increase among Democrats and +2% increase among Republicans. CNN saw the second largest increase (+3%), with a +5% increase among Democrats and +7% increase among Republicans. Broken out by age group, Fox News experienced the largest increase and the largest decrease in usage of all the news sources. Among respondents aged 18-29, Fox News increased by +12%; whereas among respondents aged 50-64, Fox News decreased by -10%.
Overall, ten news sources saw an increase in reported usage between 2025 and 2026 whereas twenty saw a decrease. Consistent with the overall changes, Republicans reported regularly getting their news from fewer sources– with increases for six news sources but decreases for the remaining twenty-four. Conversely, Democrats reported getting their news from more sources from the list in 2026 vs 2025– with increases for twenty-one news sources and decreases for nine. The changes by age group were consistent with the overall changes.
