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America’s Newspapers Foundation Executive Brief · 2026 Election
Local Newspapers and the 2026 Election.Local elections are decided by local information. The local newspaper is the source voters trust most, the channel they consult first when deciding local races, and the environment they say they accept political advertising in. |
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The candidates running, the issues on the ballot, the voting records, the public meetings, the endorsements — voters need a credible source for all of it. For most voters in most local races, that source is the local newspaper.
The 2026 election cycle is built around three facts about local newspapers — and the right strategy on both sides of the paper turns the cycle into a brand-building, revenue-driving year. The findings, and what to do with them, follow.
Cover the election the way each generation wants it.
Every generation wants substantive election coverage — but they don’t want it the same way. The Roadmap Study identified five coverage types every generation rates as critical: candidate issue positions, community ballot issues, voter guides, candidate profiles, voting records. That’s the menu. The order — and especially the delivery — changes by reader.
Issue positions, voting records, ballot guides, endorsements — in the print and long-form formats they already trust.
Candidate profiles are their distinctive priority. Email newsletters, podcasts, data visualizations, mobile-first reading.
Lead Boomers on candidate interviews (48.4% vs. 44.0%) and public meetings (41.5% vs. 36.4%). Live-stream, video, audio, shareable clips.
Same content. Different packaging. Local newspapers that plan against the generational breakdown serve all three readers.
Lead with trust. Lead with voters.
The advertising pitch for 2026 rests on two claims no other local channel can match.
51% trust plus the lowest misinformation blame (23%) is the cleanest brand-safety position in local media. Voters call political ads in local newspapers biased 6% of the time vs. 28% on social, 7% in direct mail. Irritating 4% vs. 30% on social, 18% in direct mail. Five times cleaner on bias. 4.5× cleaner on irritation.
74% of newspaper readers vote in national and state elections vs. 59% of non-readers — a 15-point gap. 61% vote nearly every time in local elections vs. 40% of non-readers — a 21-point gap in the local races campaigns are built to win. 74% of voters say they will use the local newspaper to decide local races.
A trusted environment around an audience that votes. No other local channel can claim either. Local newspapers can claim both.
The 2026 election year is a brand-building, revenue-driving cycle for the local newspapers that lean into all four — through smarter editorial coverage and a more confident advertising pitch.
Two briefs with the full data.
Where content delivered and content desired align — and where they don’t. The seven election coverage types readers want most, ranked, with the generational pattern.
Read the editorial brief →Why local newspapers are the right environment for political advertising in 2026 — built on voter trust, voter turnout, and how voters say they receive political ads across channels.
Read the advertising brief →Source: Trust in Media Study and Local Media Roadmap Study, conducted by Coda Ventures for America’s Newspapers Foundation. n=3,000+, ±1.8% margin of error at 95% confidence.
For more on the research or how local newspapers are using this data in 2026, contact America’s Newspapers.
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