MAGA Podcasters Lose Interest in Trump as Mentions of the President Fall Nearly 70% Ahead of Midterms

Mentions of President Donald Trump on conservative podcasts have fallen nearly 70% from their peak around the 2024 election, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of nearly 70,000 hours of podcast content.

The figures offer a snapshot of political conversation among the conservative creators tracked by the Journal as the November midterm elections approach.

The analysis examined 147 political podcasts alongside more than 10 million TikTok and Instagram posts, thousands of hours of broadcast news and the Journal's own reporting. It found that Trump went from roughly 39 to 40 mentions per hour on conservative podcasts around the 2024 election to about 11 to 12 mentions per hour by 20 September 2026.

The Journal cautioned that the creators it tracks are not a sample of voters and that mentioning a politician does not mean the person discussing them supports or opposes them. A decline in mentions therefore does not, by itself, establish that conservative podcasters have abandoned Trump politically.

Trump Mentions Fall as Conservative Podcasts Shift Focus

The change is nevertheless substantial. Trump has repeatedly urged Republicans to keep him central to the midterms, telling supporters at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas to 'pretend I'm on the ballot'.

Yet his name has become substantially less prominent on the conservative podcasts monitored by the Journal.

Monthly Trump mentions on those shows have fallen about 30% since the US launched its war with Iran in late February, according to the Journal's analysis. That is a measurement of the conversation rather than evidence that the conflict caused the decline.

Some conservative hosts have criticised the war, while former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has publicly broken with the administration over the conflict.

The shift has coincided with other signs of dissatisfaction among Republicans. The share of Republicans who said the economy was better than a year earlier fell from 72% in January to 29% in September, according to a New York Times/Siena poll cited by the Journal.

The podcast data shows a similar decline in attention to Trump, although the analysis does not establish that economic concerns or the Iran war are responsible for it.

Left-leaning podcasts have shown a different pattern. Their mentions of Trump have remained relatively steady as Democrats seek to make the midterms a referendum on his presidency. A White House spokeswoman disputed that approach, saying left-leaning podcasters were targeting Trump to distract from the Democrats' record.

For the conservative creators tracked by the Journal, meanwhile, other subjects have moved into the space.

James Talarico, Lindsay Clancy Become Major Targets

Texas Democrat James Talarico has become the most-mentioned Democrat who is not a former president on the 147 conservative podcasts monitored by the Journal.

During the period analysed, hosts mentioned Talarico more often than Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, California Governor Gavin Newsom and Senator Bernie Sanders. He was also mentioned nearly three times as often as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Talarico is running against Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton in Texas, where Democrats have not won a statewide elected office since 1994. He has made his Christian faith an important part of his political identity, while conservative commentators have focused heavily on remarks he has previously made about religion, transgender rights and immigration.

Some conservative hosts have described Talarico as radical or extreme. Ted Cruz similarly called him a 'dangerous candidate' and accused him of being able to appear 'charming' and 'innocuous'.

Talarico has acknowledged that he 'missed the mark' with some past statements. Trump has also attacked him, using the nickname 'Talafreako' at the Republican midterm convention.

But the Journal found that the political conversation among conservative podcasts is not simply shifting towards Democratic candidates.

The trial of Massachusetts mother Lindsay Clancy became another major subject.

Clancy is accused of killing her three children. Her defence argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and should not be held criminally responsible. The case ended in a mistrial earlier this month after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict.

Accounts of the deliberations indicated that 11 jurors favoured finding Clancy not criminally responsible, while one juror disagreed. The jury consisted of nine women and three men.

Some conservative commentators interpreted the disagreement through the lens of gender, arguing that a man would not have received comparable treatment. That was their argument, rather than an established explanation for why the jury deadlocked.

A YouGov poll of 23,554 US adults conducted from 4 to 8 September found that 61% of Republicans, 43% of independents and 34% of Democrats thought Clancy should have been found guilty of murder.

The Journal's system also found that the case travelled beyond its usual political audience, reaching creators and communities that typically focus on subjects such as sport, parenting and entertainment. The newspaper said its AI-assisted system identified those patterns, while journalists reviewed transcripts and videos before drawing conclusions.

Trump himself acknowledged following the case after the mistrial, saying, 'It's on television so much, it's hard not to follow it.'