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Wrapping Our Heads Around the Trump Effect

GOP hopeful Donald Trump articulated the relationship between candidates and the media at his Dallas rally on Monday.
Flickr/Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)
GOP hopeful Donald Trump articulated the relationship between candidates and the media at his Dallas rally on Monday.

From Texas Standard

An estimated 20,000 people packed into the American Airlines Center Monday night to see Donald Trump live in Dallas, Texas.

Politico reported that tickets sold out so fast, scalpers were selling pairs of passes online for $200.

As the talking heads furrow their brows to explain how Donald Trump is “winning” – as he puts it – and as political analysts twist to account for the Trump effect, the candidate himself nailed it last night.

He says that on TV, it’s “all Trump, all the time.”

“Their ratings are through the roof. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t put me on, I’ll be honest with you,” Trump says. “It’s a very simple formula in entertainment and television, if you get good ratings…then you’regonnabe on all the time, even if you have nothing to say.”

MatthewEshbaugh-Soha, professor and chair of the University of North Texas Political Science Department, tells the Standard whether Trump's comment has merit.

He says the relationship between TV and presidential politics is “highly interrelated.”

Read more at Texas Standard.

Copyright 2020 KUT 90.5. To see more, visit KUT 90.5.

Rhonda is the newest member of the KUT News team, joining in late 2013 as producer for KUT's new daily news program, The Texas Standard. Rhonda will forever be known as the answer to the trivia question, “Who was the first full-time hire for The Texas Standard?” She’s an Iowa native who got her start in public radio at WFSU in Tallahassee, while getting her Master's Degree in Library Science at Florida State University. Prior to joining KUT and The Texas Standard, Rhonda was a producer for Wisconsin Public Radio.