MAGA Websites, Seeing Traffic Plummet, Begin Reckoning With a Post-Trump America

News publications built on harvesting clicks from MAGA supporters are fading as President Trump begins his final act in American politics. Web traffic is falling across the board for news sites. The trend is lending credence to the president’s prediction that the press will miss him when he’s gone, with those who advocate for his movement hardest hit.Analyses by Similarweb found that 90 percent of the top right-wing sites saw drops in visits between May 2025 and May 2026. Traffic to all of the top 20 sites monitored by TheRighting, which aggregates headlines from conservative outlets, saw double-digit declines.The Daily Wire, Blaze, and Federalist suffered falls of 47, 46, and 52 percent respectively. The Washington Free Beacon’s visits dropped 38 percent and the Daily Caller’s 33 percent. Of the Top 20, only the Epoch Times — which built its audience with coverage opposing Communist China — and Truth Social had single-digit losses.Monday’s Reuters/Ipsos poll found Mr. Trump’s approval rating at 36 percent and disapproval at 69 percent. Forty-one percent of registered voters said they’d back a Democrat and 38 percent a Republican if congressional elections were held today.If Democrats are elected to set the agenda in the midterms, they’ll challenge Mr. Trump’s powers to keep supporters hungry for news about his ongoing battles. Putting his name in a headline will no longer be enough to earn a windfall of clicks. Regardless of who controls Congress, the 48th president will eclipse the 45th and 47th after he leaves office.“My success is not determined by who wins elections,” this columnist’s late boss, Rush Limbaugh, told the “Firing Line” host, William F. Buckley, in 1992. He later used the line as a chapter heading in his book, “The Way Things Ought to Be” and repeated the sentiment as each new change in the White House was predicted to herald his downfall.Conservative publications chained themselves to the electoral fortunes of the GOP and Mr. Trump in ways Limbaugh avoided. MAGA personalities make endorsements; Limbaugh never did. They cozy up to powerful Republicans. Limbaugh avoided getting too close to Washingtonians, ensuring that he was free to criticize policies that violated conservative principles.Politicians come and go. Ideas endure. Press organizations that relied on outrage about Mr. Trump over issues saw drops for the same reason as MAGA ones. “It’s certainly an alarming development for legacy media outlets on both the right and left but not a surprising one,” the president of TheRighting, Howard Polskin, wrote in a statement.Traffic to the Washington Post and CNN fell by almost a quarter year-over-year. Mr. Polskin noted that this occurred despite the long-simmering conflict with Iran exploding in the Mideast. War tends to draw eyeballs as do reports of economic gloom. Both have been common of late. Neither has resulted in an increased appetite for news.Mr. Polskin said he “would attribute some of” the drop in traffic to “the exponential growth of news and opinion options that are multiplying by the day.” Conventional wisdom long held that Americans begin paying attention to politics only after Labor Day. But now politics — and Mr. Trump — are everywhere, in everything, all the time.In September, the Pew Research Center noted that 21 percent of American adults “prefer” websites or apps “for getting news,” down five points from 2020. The percentage getting their information from podcasts doubled over that period. There are more publications than ever chasing a shrinking audience for MAGA content.The exhaustion with politics began with President Clinton’s “permanent campaign” in 1992. Ever since, affairs of state have evolved into a year-round spectator sport. It follows that, when a team is losing, fans tune out, choosing to spend time on pursuits less aggravating than endless, post-game obituaries.News websites that built their audiences on Mr. Trump never made the connection that’s key to keeping people coming back regardless of who’s in the White House. As this president’s time in office ticks down, expect the decline in traffic to accelerate, and news organizations to learn the folly of making their success dependent on who wins elections.

MAGA Websites, Seeing Traffic Plummet, Begin Reckoning With a Post-Trump America

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