The 27 Most Consequential Media Figures of the 2024 Election

The 2024 presidential campaign has entered its final hours.

With the vast majority of the election cycle behind us, we’ve taken a moment to pause and reflect on the media figures who have had the most significant impact on the high-stakes race. Over the past year, these people have played consequential roles, helping to shape public perception and discourse.

Below, in no particular order, are the 27 figures who stood out to Status this campaign season.

Dana Bash and Jake Tapper: As CNN’s lead Washington anchors, Bash and Tapper have been central figures this election cycle. The two moderated the first presidential debate over the summer, which ultimately led to Joe Biden exiting the race. Bash then scored the first joint interview with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Meanwhile, Tapper’s recent sit-down with J.D. Vance spurred a wave of headlines and burnished his reputation as one of the toughest interviewers in the business.

David Muir and Linsey Davis: As the moderators of the second presidential debate, Muir and Davis made their presence known when they repeatedly fact-checked Donald Trump in his only face-off with Harris. Doing so caused Trump and his right-wing media allies to launch attacks on the ABC News anchors and the Disney-owned network. But the moderating duo also drew praise for not giving Trump a free national forum to peddle dangerous lies.

Ezra Klein: Klein was one of the first prominent progressive voices to raise questions about Biden’s cognitive fitness for office. Back in February, Klein published an audio essay for his New York Times podcast, arguing that Biden’s age was “slowing him” down. That podcast helped open the door to the notion Biden might not have been up to the task of serving another term. Klein’s subsequent work also contributed greatly to the narrative he was unfit.

George Clooney: Klein may have been one of the first to raise questions about Biden’s cognitive fitness, but Clooney unquestionably put one of the final nails in the coffin. As questions about Biden’s age dominated the public discourse after the CNN debate, Clooney published a candid op-ed in The NYT calling on him to step aside. The piece came after Clooney had just headlined a record-breaking fundraiser for Biden, making it all the more devastating.

Aaron Rupar and @Acyn: If you’re in media or politics, you know who Rupar and @Acyn are. The prolific social media clippers act as a set of eyes and ears for those who do not have endless hours to monitor live campaign speeches and cable news segments (few do). The video clips they post regularly go viral, catching the eye of news executives and political operatives.

Rachel Scott: It was without a doubt one of the most memorable moments of the campaign. When Trump appeared at the convention for the National Association of Black Journalists, Scott repeatedly pressed him on a host of issues, not backing down as Trump attempted to bully her onstage. The grilling session led to Trump questioning Harris’ racial background — one of the ugliest remarks of the campaign season.

Elon Musk: The “dark MAGA” billionaire most notably transformed Twitter into a right-wing megaphone that he is now using to boost Trump. But he has also gone further. In addition to disfiguring the real-time social media network, Musk has appeared at rallies with the former president and poured large sums of money into getting out the vote — including launching a $1 million giveaway that has landed him in some legal hot water.

A.G. Sulzberger and Joe Kahn: As the two leaders of The NYT, Sulzberger and Kahn have received their fair share of criticism — some of it warranted, some of it not — from just about everyone this campaign season. Regardless of where one comes down on The NYT’s coverage, the focus on the newspaper is due to the tremendous influence The Gray Lady wields over American politics. How The NYT covers the campaign matters arguably more than any other single news organization.

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan: The endless stream of reporting from the star politics reporters has helped inform the public about the autocratic would-be agenda of Trump more than any other reporting duo. Their well of knowledge, coupled with their vast source networks, has made Haberman and Swan indispensable this campaign season.

Rachel Maddow: No figure is as influential in progressive politics as Maddow. When Maddow speaks, people listen. But unlike right-wing talking heads on Fox News, Maddow doesn’t just blindly serve her party. When Biden performed terribly at the summer debate, Maddow was honest with her audience and spoke of the president’s “halting delivery.” And in the ensuing days, she used her platform to raise questions about whether Biden was being insulated from the reality that Americans wanted him to drop out of the race.

The Drudge Report and HuffPost: With the fragmentation of social media, hand-curated homepages have become more important than ever. That has made both Drudge and HuffPost especially valuable. And while legacy newsrooms have at times struggled to cover Trump’s assault on democracy in clear-eyed terms, neither Drudge nor HuffPost has flinched.

Sean Hannity: The Fox News mainstay has served as Trump’s most loyal mouthpiece since he emerged onto the political scene — and 2024 has been no different. Hannity used his prime time perch to launch dishonest attacks on Harris, while simultaneously pushing propaganda on behalf of Trump. Hannity's shameless tactics aren't new, but they certainly are influential over the GOP.

Joe Rogan: Few can convince a presidential candidate to sit down for three hours to participate in a freewheeling conversation during the final stretch of the campaign. But Rogan not only persuaded Trump to do so, he also scored a subsequent interview with running mate Vance. The interviews were not aggressive, but they did generate plenty of headlines. As a nod to his influence this campaign cycle, just the possibility that Harris would grant the podcaster an interview gave way to an entire news cycle.

Andrew Kaczynski: Few reporters break as much news as Kaczynski does during campaign season. This cycle has been no different, with the CNN journalist churning out scoop after scoop, including news that Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor in North Carolina, made dozens of disturbing comments on the “Nude Africa” porn website.

Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, Dan Bongino, and Patrick Bet David: The four right-wing commentators host some of the most-listened-to podcasts in the country, shaping how scores of people think about the presidential race. While pundits like Kirk and Bongino have been all-in on Trump for years, this campaign cycle marked the moment in which Shapiro fully threw his hat into the MAGA camp. The conservative went from penning Never Trump essays in 2016 to co-hosting a fundraiser for Trump this election cycle.

Scott Jennings: In 2016, CNN had Jeffrey Lord. In 2024, it had Scott Jennings. Over the course of the campaign cycle, Jennings became a reliable talking head on CNN’s all-star politics panels. Jennings has used his air time to push dishonest MAGA talking points and pollute the public discourse with nonsense, much of it so absurd that it is hard to fathom he even believes it.

Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong: Ironically, the two billionaires injected themselves into the election cycle by attempting to stay outside of it. But by blocking their respective newspapers from endorsing Harris, they played active roles in the cycle. And, far more notably, they became avatars for how the business community started to bend the knee before Trump.

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