Rachel Maddow averaged the second most viewers on cable news during 2018, with 2.9 million nightly per Nielsen, and finished the year with a kick, claiming the No. 1 spot for that week of December. | Steven Senne/AP Photo Media New Democratic kingmaker: Ratings surge positions Maddow to boost favorite candidates “Rachel has a [direct] line to the base,” said a Democratic consultant involved in a 2020 campaign.

Iowa is fine, and New Hampshire certainly has its charms.

But one of the most important contests of the 2020 Democratic nominating process kicked off Wednesday night not at a county fair or diner, but inside MSNBC’s New York City studios, where Elizabeth Warren sat down with Rachel Maddow, the host of cable news’ recently crowned No. 1 show.


Donald Trump's ability to dominate cable news helped vault him from outsider status within the Republican Party to the White House in 2016. Now, with ratings surging at MSNBC, political strategists and communications experts say getting air time on the left-leaning network, and the Rachel Maddow Show in particular, could be crucial for candidates looking to separate themselves from what is expected to be a crowded Democratic field.

“People will break the political speed limit to be a guest on her show if they’re seriously considering seeking the Democratic nomination in 2020,” said Antjuan Seawright, a South Carolina-based Democratic strategist who worked for Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016.

“Rachel has a [direct] line to the base,” said a Democratic consultant involved in a 2020 campaign. Her viewers are older, the consultant said, “but it’s the lowest hanging fruit.”

Morning Media Your guide to the media circus — weekday mornings, in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Those with strong preexisting relationships with the host, such as Warren — who chose Maddow for her first interview after announcing she is formally weighing a run for president and was rewarded with about half of the show’s one-hour airtime — could stand to benefit. Maddow, who is known for her progressive positions, won’t feel compelled to give all the many Democratic candidates equal time, said one person familiar with the thinking at the network about the primaries.

“I don’t think anybody is trying to make sure everybody gets a chance,” the person said, adding that there would be no mandates to Maddow from network brass. “Only Rachel speaks for Rachel, and that’s the beauty of that show.”

And so perhaps the most important thing Maddow said to Warren Wednesday night came at the end of the interview, when the host offered a quasi-endorsement and invitation to return frequently. “I think that your campaign is going to be formidable, from what we have seen already,” Maddow said. “I hope throughout the process you will keep us apprised and keep coming back.”

MSNBC, which declined to comment for this story, is in the midst of a ratings boom, as the network of choice for Democrats and other anti-Trumpers. It averaged 1.56 million viewers throughout the day during the five-day week of Dec. 17-21, according to Nielsen, pushing it past Fox News (1.54 million) for the first time during a week since 2001 and placing it well ahead of CNN (975,000).

But Maddow’s platform is unlike any other on the network. The progressive host averaged the second most viewers on cable news during 2018, with 2.9 million nightly per Nielsen, and finished the year with a kick, claiming the No. 1 spot for that week of December, averaging 3.21 million viewers (to be fair, her Fox News rival Sean Hannity, who finished first for the year, was on vacation that week). Maddow averages about a million more viewers per night than her primetime colleagues, Lawrence O’Donnell and Chris Hayes.

One MSNBC producer said that the mad scramble of candidates trying to get on the network’s air has not yet begun, given that Warren is one of only a few candidates to make their intentions plain so far. Many hopefuls seem to be avoiding the network right now, the producer said, possibly because they don’t want to be put on the spot by hosts asking whether they’ll run. With such a crowded field, though, the producer predicted heavy jockeying for the most desirable spots: on Morning Joe and in primetime, particularly with Maddow.

“Theoretically, we’d find airtime,” the producer said, “but if it’s so many, some may not get the times they’d prefer.”

For all of Maddow’s power, the weight of any single media channel has diminished in recent decades, as information sources become more diffuse. Left-leaning podcasts like Pod Save America have loyal, younger followings, and The Young Turks helped Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) shock a longtime incumbent in a primary. Candidates also have their own social media streams and email lists that can reach hundreds of thousands of activists.

But Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied how Rush Limbaugh turned himself into a political kingmaker for Republicans, said she sees similarities between the two. Limbaugh and Maddow have clear ideological viewpoints and loyal followers who have made their shows part of their daily routine, Jamieson said. She said candidates who get invited back multiple times will start to seem to viewers like part of Maddow’s group.

“I wouldn’t call it a primary so much as I’d call it a caucus,” Jamieson said. “The key thing is going to be how much do you see a person, not do you see them.”

Maddow is coveted by potential Democratic presidential candidates not only for her program’s reach but for the credibility that her brand lends them with progressive activists and donors. Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime Democratic strategist based in New York, called Maddow “the Ed Sullivan of politics of this generation,” saying a candidate can use appearances on the program as a status signal to the base.

“If you go there, you get viewed by people who are interested in politics and who are on the left, center-left, who don’t like Trump and who have no problem with sexual orientation or gender,” he said. “It’s safe for people on the so-called progressive left. All they have to do is show up, smile, get a cane, and dance like Fred Astaire.”

Within hours of her appearance on Maddow’s program, Warren had tweeted video of it. By Thursday morning, it had been viewed 132,000 times.

For Democratic candidates, Maddow also offers a relatively low-risk environment, with a sympathetic host and viewership. She is not Hannity — whose chummy relationship with Trump extended to appearing at a campaign event with him — but on Wednesday night, she teed up Warren to unfurl her personal biography and favored talking points. Maddow rarely challenged Warren, including over her decision to take a genetic test in response to criticism over her claims of Native American heritage.

Frank Sesno, director of The George Washington University's media school and a former CNN reporter, said that it remains an open question how hard Maddow will question her guests. Citing a host on another network who recently grilled a potential candidate, Sesno asked, “Is she going to challenge Elizabeth Warren or Cory Booker or Sherrod Brown or anybody else when they come across their desk in the same way?”

Seawright, the South Carolina-based strategist, said Maddow’s reach extends beyond her television program. When Maddow moderated a forum among Democratic candidates in South Carolina ahead of the 2016 presidential election, he said, “people were literally coming from all parts of the country” to see not only the candidates, but also the television star.

The Massachusetts senator — who has long been a regular on the MSNBC program, even as she built a reputation for avoiding reporters inside the Capitol — is far from the only Democrat to benefit from Maddow’s glow. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris have appeared on her program, and last year, the TV host told Amy Klobuchar that she is “one of the people who I most enjoy talking to on television about politics."

“As a political analyst, I feel like you have exactly the right profile of somebody who ought to run for president, with an expectation that you would do very well both in the primary and in the general election,” Maddow told the Minnesota senator.

And when the candidates make it on, they take pains to ingratiate themselves with the host. Klobuchar told Maddow last year, “I think I was on your show early on — I would go on every Halloween, when no one else maybe did.”

And in September, amid the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Harris tweeted a photograph of herself on the phone in a utility closet, apparently with Maddow on the other end of the line.

"Always good to talk to @maddow, even from a utility closet,” the senator wrote.

