NEWS AND OPINION:
Let’s all send good tidings to the Heritage Foundation, which turned 50 years old on Feb. 16.
The celebration of that auspicious event, however, will be marked by an timely two-day leadership summit which begins Thursday and concludes Friday with an evening gala at a glittering resort a few miles south of the nation’s capital.
“The summit will demonstrate consensus around big-picture questions facing America and deliver a conservative policy agenda equipped to unite the movement around an offensive strategy to take back our country, restore self-governance, and rebuild key institutions of civil society,” the organization said in a statement.
Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Mike Lee of Utah, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Rick Scott of Florida, and J.D. Vance of Ohio will appear at the event along with Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia. Attendees include “high profile leaders from every sector of the conservative coalition,” Heritage noted.
Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson will offer the keynote speech for the gala, by the way. He is an appropriate choice. Mr. Carlson began his career with a job at the Heritage Foundation as a fact-checker and writer for Policy Review, the foundation’s quarterly journal. He went on the co-found The Daily Caller, and served as a host on both MSNBC and CNN before arriving at Fox News.
“Tucker Carlson is a fearless American who is unafraid to challenge the Washington regime, ask tough questions, and hold the ruling elite accountable. His nightly show is must-see TV for anyone who realizes we have a limited window of time to save this country,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said in a written statement.
CHRISTIE ON THE MOVE
Both Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump have both been in New Hampshire in recent days. Now it is Chris Christie’s turn to visit the Granite State, though he has not revealed his level of interest in jumping in the 2024 presidential race — yet.
The local Cheshire County Republican Committee will host Mr. Christie for cocktails and dinner at a local country club on Friday. Tickets are $50 each and they go to benefit the host organization and local candidates.
Mr. Christie has already publicly criticized both Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis and is making the rounds of the mainstream media. It is also of note that ChrisChristie.com — which served as the former New Jersey governor’s campaign website in 2016 — is still up and running.
“Thank you, America” is the lead message at the site.
“The campaign is over but the fight goes on. I will continue to fight for my belief that government needs to once again work for the people, not for the people who work for the government. I will continue to reinforce what I have always believed – that speaking your mind matters, that experience matters, that competence matters and that it will always matter in leading our nation,” Mr. Christie said at the time.
He closed his statement with a single word: “Onward.”
CONNECTIVITY ARRIVES
Nielsen reveals a new trend in America’s TV-watching habits.
“As of Jan. 15, 2023, 84.9% of U.S. households had at least one TV-connected device. We see similar trends among households migrating away from cable and satellite boxes altogether, as 33% of U.S. TV households in third-quarter 2022 accessed their TV content solely through a broadband internet connection. As of Jan. 15, 2023, the percentage had grown to 35.5%,” Nielsen said in its study of the trends, released Wednesday.
It’s all about “connectivity,” the study said — a force which drives “how Americans are engaging with their TV.”
This could be of interest to political campaigns gearing up for the 2024 presidential election. Keep in mind that political ad spending during the 2019-2020 election cycle reached $8.5 billion across TV, radio and digital media according to Forbes. Will heightened “connectivity” affect that? We shall see.
FOXIFIED, ONLINE EDITION
The online outreach of Fox News — that would be Fox News Digital — finished the first quarter of 2023 as the top-performing news organization online, besting cable news rivals and The New York Times, according to the industry source Comscore. Numbers tell all.
From January through March, Fox News Digital had 5.2 billion views of its website, more than CNN.com (4 billion views) and The Times (3.9 billion). In addition, Fox News averaged 101 million online visitors to the site per month, a 28% increase over the same time period in 2022, according to Comscore.
Visitors also spent 8.8 billion minutes at the Fox News site during the three-month time period. Those who chose CNN’s site lingered for 6.2 billion minutes, while visitors to The Times site spent 4.1 billion minutes there.
This marks the eighth consecutive quarter that Fox News has emerged the victor in total time spent at a site.
The network also was the “most engaged brand on social media” with 90.1 million total social media interactions in the first three months of the year, according to Emplifi, an industry source. This marks the 36th consecutive quarter (that’s nine years) that the network has earned the top title.
And a few numbers: Fox News drove 23.2 million encounters on Facebook, 56.8 million on Instagram and 10 million Twitter interactions during the quarter. On YouTube, Fox News generated 662.6 million views. according to industry source Shareablee.
POLL DU JOUR
• 36% of U.S. adults would vote for former President Donald Trump if the two major political parties nominate him and President Biden in the 2024 presidential election; 82% of Republicans, 30% of independents and 6% of Democrats agree.
• 34% overall would vote for Mr. Biden; 7% of Republicans, 22% of independents and 74% of Democrats agree.
• 11% overall would strongly consider voting for an independent; 4% of Republicans, 23% of independents and 8% of Democrats agree.
• 13% overall would choose not to vote; 3% of Republicans, 18% of independents and 8% of Democrats agree.
• 7% overall are not sure about the issue; 4% of Republicans, 7% of independents and 4% of Democrats agree.
SOURCE: A Yahoo News/YouGov poll of 1,530 U.S. adults conducted April 14-17.
• Follow Jennifer Harper on Twitter @HarperBulletin.
