During his seven-year tenure as host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, Trevor Noah brought a reliably liberal bias to the program, a NewsBusters study has found.
MRC analysts found that from when Noah began hosting The Daily Show on September 28, 2015 through his final show on December 8, 2022, Noah had on 159 partisan guests including 109 unique individuals. Of these 159 guests, 137, or 86.16 percent, were Democrats or in some way affiliated with the Democratic Party.
Here is a video from NewsBusters media editor Bill D'Agostino summarizing the low lights of Noah's tenure as host of The Daily Show:
Twice failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams was Noah’s most common guest with five appearances. Close behind were Kristen Gillibrand, Cory Booker, and Amy Klobuchar with four each. Van Jones, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, Chris Christie, and Barack Obama each appeared three times with Noah.
In addition to Christie, Tim Scott, Rand Paul, and John Kasich were the only Republicans to appear multiple times.
Every year Noah was host saw Democrats outnumber Republican and the numbers tended to get more lopsided as time went on. 2015-2016 was 72.72 percent Democrat while the last six years was 88.32 percent Democrat.
2019 saw the highest total of Democrats with 31, while 2016 and 2021 were tied for the highest total of Republicans at 5. 2018 was the most lopsided ratio at 18:1 in favor of Democrats while 2021 defied trends and was the most balanced at 9:5.
The complete breakdown by year is as follows:
2015- 2:1
2016- 14:5
2017: 21:2
2018: 18:1
2019: 31:4
2020: 27:2
2021: 9:5
2022: 15:2
The post-Noah era of The Daily Show is not off to a good start as former Democratic Senator Al Franken has been named one of the temporary hosts when the show returns in 2023.
Methodology: The Daily Show with Trevor Noah ran from September 28, 2015, through December 8, 2022.
A partisan guest was defined as a current or previously elected politician, White House staffer, cabinet secretary, any of their children who are known to be political in their own right, or anybody who used to work for one of the two major political parties. Only American guests were included.
Interesting Cases: Former RNC chair Michael Steele (2016) is listed as a Republican because, while he did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016, he did not vote for Hillary Clinton. Ana Navarro (2016, 2018), Rick Wilson (2020), and Stuart Stevens (2020) are listed as a Democrats because they have become loyal Democratic supporters. Adam Kinzinger (2021) is still listed as a Republican despite serving on Nancy Pelosi’s January 6 committee because he had not yet voted Democrats.
