Majority of Americans feel overwhelmed with political news as election nears, new poll shows

From President Biden dropping out of the presidential and Vice President Kamala Harris taking the helm of the Democratic party to Donald Trump's attempted assassination, it's been nothing short of historically busy months in American politics. And even though the elections are still ahead, it seems Americans are already eager to tune out and take a break.

A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts found that 59% of Americans feel the need to limit their political news.

The study was conducted among over 1,000 U.S. adults between July 29-August 8 with a nationally representative sample. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.

About half of respondents say they are following political news "extremely" or "very" closely, with about 6 in 10 saying they need to limit how much information they consume about the government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued.

That is the case for Lori Johnson Malveaux, a 54-year-old Democrat. Although she is a frequent voter— and plans to cast her ballot in November— she mentions that watching the news has become overwhelming. While her husband turns on the television to tune into their favorite broadcast network, she prefers to sit in a different room to watch a movie, craving something comforting and entertaining.

"I just got to the point where I don't want to hear the rhetoric," Malveaux told the Associated Press.

Likewise, Caleb Pack, 23, a Republican from Ardmore, Oklahoma, tries to keep informed through the news feeds on his phone, which contains a variety of sources, including CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press. But exhaustion is getting to him.

"It's good to know what's going on, but both sides are pulling a little bit extreme," he said. "It just feels like it's a conversation piece everywhere, and it's hard to escape it."

Media fatigue is not a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late 2019 found roughly two in three Americans felt worn out by the amount of news there is, about the same as in a poll in early 2018, AP News explains.

But when it comes to politics, audiences feel the most necessity to often step away. By comparison, when 59% of adults say they need to limit their media consumption on government and politics, 50% say the same about overseas conflict, 50% on crime, and 42% on the economy and jobs.

In the AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 men said they follow news about elections and politics at least "very" closely, compared to about half of women. For all types of news, not just politics, women are more likely than men to report the need to limit their media consumption, according to the survey.

As the election quickly nears, being less than two months away, it is likely that the rhetoric and campaigns will continue to ramp up. The next big event that will be taking place will be the Vice Presidential debate between Gov. Tim Walz and Sen. JD Vance on Oct. 1.