The research team analyzed 1,711 Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik News articles from January 1 to November 10, 2019 that pertained to the 2020 presidential election (705 RT stories, 1,006 Sputnik News stories). Those 1,711 stories hosted 2,772 mentions of either the president, Republican candidates or Democratic candidates for president in 2020. More than half of those mentions referenced President Trump, which will be analyzed in a separate upcoming post. The team also logged an additional 319 mentions of former presidents and presidential candidates, which will be analyzed separately as well. Mentions were evaluated as “neutral,” “favorable” of the candidate or “unfavorable” of the candidate. (For more on the FIE 2020 methodology, see here.)

The 1,203 mentions of Democratic candidates quickly illustrated the Kremlin’s preferences amongst the Democratic field and, in particular, who they likely don’t want to see inaugurated in January 2021. Here are some highlights from this first round of analysis regarding the Democratic candidates along with two charts. Figure 1 represents the distribution of mentions and Figure 2 shows the count of mentions assessed on each media outlet:


Russian outlets clearly do not like former Vice President Biden . . . .


Senator Bernie Sanders received mixed coverage from Russian outlets . . .


Senator Elizabeth Warren has recently moved into the Kremlin’s crosshairs. . . .