Thirty-one endorsements. Zero Republicans. Ten election cycles spanning from 1988 to 2024. That's the editorial endorsement record of the news outlets Apple News and Google News have been pushing to the top of your phone screen, according to a new study from the Media Research Center.
Not even the Harlem Globetrotters have a record that lopsided.
The MRC study tracked the five most-promoted outlets on each major news aggregator platform between November 1, 2025, and July 31, 2026. Then researchers went back through 40 years of presidential endorsements to see which candidates those outlets backed. The results were about as surprising as a sunrise, but the numbers still hit like a freight train.
Apple News's top-promoted outlets — including The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today, and The Guardian — racked up a combined 28-0 endorsement record in favor of Democratic candidates. Not a single Republican nod in a decade of presidential races. Google News wasn't any better, with its favored outlets posting a 27-0 record for Democrats. Combined across both platforms, the number lands at 31-0.
Microsoft's MSN was the closest thing to a counterweight, and even that's generous. Its promoted outlets endorsed Democrats 25 times against just 2 Republican endorsements — both for George H.W. Bush back when the Cold War was still winding down. Since then, nothing.
The study identified what Cornelio called "rampant bias plaguing these influential digital news gatekeepers." The outlets landing in those coveted top-five slots — The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, the San Francisco Chronicle — aren't exactly a mystery. We all know where their editorial boards sit. The question is why the algorithms at the most powerful tech companies in the world keep steering hundreds of millions of users toward that same closed loop.
The obvious defense is that algorithms are neutral — they just surface what's popular. Which is a fascinating argument when you consider that these platforms are making editorial choices about which outlets get premium placement. Popularity didn't put Rolling Stone and the San Francisco Chronicle at the top of anyone's news feed. Someone at Apple and Google decided those outlets belonged there. And those outlets, across 40 years of elections, have never once told their readers that a Republican deserved the presidency.
This isn't about any single endorsement. Editorial boards endorse candidates — that's what they do. The problem is the pipeline. Apple and Google function as the front page of the internet for millions of Americans who never type in a URL. The outlets those platforms choose to elevate become the default lens through which people understand the news. And every single one of those lenses bends in exactly the same direction.
Thirty-one for thirty-one. Every election. Every cycle. Every time. The algorithm doesn't have a voter registration card, but if it did, we wouldn't need to guess which party.