The Power of Humor: How Political Comedy Can Make or Break a Presidential Campaign

By Dr. Caroline Leicht

Almost seven in ten Americans attribute the quote “I can see Russia from my house” to Sarah Palin (Cacciatore et al. 2014). But that is not where the quote originated. It was comedian Tina Fey who said it while impersonating Palin on the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) during the 2008 US presidential campaign. That the quote became associated with the real Palin as opposed to Fey’s impersonation raises substantial questions and concerns about political comedy’s influence on US politics. And this is not an isolated incident.

Comedy and humor are currently seeing an era of “repoliticization,” arguably since the 2008 election (Nieuwenhuis and Zijp 2022: 343; Ödmark 2023: 1178). In recent election cycles, political comedy has begun to reflect more journalistic elements (Kilby 2018; Ödmark 2023; Ödmark and Nicolai 2024) and elements of activism and political mobilization (Baym and Shah 2011; Becker 2021; Jones et al. 2012; Meier and Berg 2024). Indeed, political comedy is increasingly used as a news source by citizens, particularly in the United States (ANES 2021; Gottfried et al. 2016).

Political comedy is a common news source among US voters

My analysis of the 2020 American National Election Study (ANES) data shows that political comedy is a key media source that Americans interact with during the campaign. The vast majority of Americans rely on television and internet sites for election news (83.4% and 68.8% respectively). This distribution seems to be holding up in the current election cycle as well. Data from Pew Research Center shows that so far Americans have primarily been relying on television (35%), news websites and apps (21%), and social media (20%) to get information about the election and the candidates (Shearer et al. 2024).

In addition to these broader media trends, the 2020 ANES provides further insights into which types of television programs Americans engage with during campaigns. SNL ranked 11^th among 32 entertainment and news television programs. This put the show, which is particularly well-known for its political sketch comedy, ahead of many traditional news programs such as Meet the Press (NBC), Tucker Carlson Tonight (Fox News) and CBS Evening News (CBS). All respondents of the 2020 ANES who said they regularly watched SNL had previously indicated they relied on television programs for election news. The show’s audience was also representative of the overall US population across several key demographics, including sex, income, party affiliation and age.

Political comedy programs are also a key platform to reach undecided or less politically interested voters. These types of programs tend to attract both audience members who specifically watch for the political content and audience members who watch for other reasons, primarily entertainment. However, the latter are still subject to incidental exposure – receiving political information without having actively sought it ought (Baum 2002). Political comedy has also been found to be an “entrance for the uninterested” (Andersen 2019), motivating viewers to seek out more political information after initial incidental exposure.

Are candidates prioritizing late-night comedy over traditional news interviews?

The power of political comedy has not gone unnoticed by candidates and their teams. In past election cycles, SNL and other late-night comedy programs have been key campaign stops for candidates like John McCain, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and even Donald Trump – before he started publicly calling out what he perceived as bias against him on the shows. Given his shift in perspective, Trump has not been engaging much with political comedy in the current election cycle either. However, his opponent Kamala Harris has a clear comedy strategy that I will explore further in this article.

In the current election cycle, there has been a lot of discourse about Kamala Harris not sitting for many interviews. Notably, though, one of her very few media stops was on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert in October. Colbert has been the subject of several studies of political comedy audience effects, not least because his audience has developed strong parasocial relationships (i.e., a perception of closeness or friendship) with him over the course of his comedy career on television (Becker 2020; Leicht 2023a, 2023b). To engage with him, an influential opinion leader and trusted voice among late-night audiences, is clearly a strategic choice by the Harris campaign.

And Harris used the platform well. Throughout her interview, she switched between fun and serious quite effortlessly. She discussed the dangers of Trump’s refusal to accept the 2020 election results, her experiences on the campaign trail, and how her policies would help the American people. But she also engaged in more fun activities and discussions, talking about her favorite sports teams, and sharing a beer with Colbert. The latter is particularly interesting given that many American voters still base their candidate evaluations – at least in part – on whether they would like to have a beer with the candidate (Hesse 2019; Leicht 2024b). Colbert picked up on this notion, joking that he was going to put Harris to the test on this measure so he could then make informed recommendations to other voters.

Memes about Harris set the news agenda in the early days of her campaign

Beyond the Late Show, Harris also took time out of her schedule to make a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live the weekend before the election. Sharing the stage with her SNL impersonator Maya Rudolph, Harris herself engaged with the comedy that has been directed at her on the show, presenting herself as a good sport. The choices to appear on the Late Show and on SNL align well with the very unique political communications strategy Harris and her campaign have been relying on since she entered the presidential race this summer. Her campaign announcement drew a lot of attention online, particularly in the form of memes. Coconut and palm tree emojis (a reference to a resurfaced Harris speech), black writing on lime green backgrounds (a reference to “brat,”, the trend of the summer), and popular culture references dominated conversations around the new Democratic nominee (Leicht 2024b). The Harris campaign appeared to be very aware of the trends, co-opting some of them into their own communications. For instance, the first header image for the “kamalahq” X (formerly Twitter) account was created in the style of the “brat” trend after singer Charli xcx declared Harris as “brat” on social media.

Candidates co-opting social media trends and memes is hardly new. In 2016, Hillary Clinton used viral moments from the debates (“nasty woman”, “deal me in”) in campaign advertisements, on social media, and even for merchandise. Joe Biden co-opted the “Dark Brandon” meme, jokingly referring to it and selling merchandise as well. So, what makes Harris’ approach unique

Unlike previous candidates, Harris and her team have been carefully avoiding any references to memes and viral moments that would be too overt. The memetic discourse about Harris emerged organically without prompting from the campaign and has led to community building and momentum for Harris online. If Harris were to acknowledge the memes or co-opt them for merchandise, it could halt this momentum. Not only would the discourse no longer feel organic and fun, but it would also take away from some of the discourse that has been keeping the momentum up, as many people like to imagine the private lives of candidates, including speculating about whether Harris is aware of the memes and what she may think about them (Leicht 2024b).

Beyond keeping social media momentum and discourse up, the memes have also helped Harris in another way. Instead of resorting to gendered framing and questions about her electability, early news media coverage of Harris sought to explain the popularity of the memes, framing Harris through a more positive and relatable lens. This would be expected to resonate well with voters, particularly those who are familiar with the online trends, though the exact effects of this news framing of Harris have yet to be determined. In a time where politics has become increasingly negative and serious, humorous breaks can be viewed favorably by voters (Higgie 2017; Leicht 2024b, 2024c). It provides an opportunity to step back, have a collective laugh, and see that candidates like Harris – whose laugh has been the subject of plenty of negative and sexist discourse about her (which she herself also addressed during her SNL appearance) – are still able to find the good in politics. Put simply, a little humor can go a long way to give people hope.

Gendered stereotypes in political comedy can have serious electoral consequences

Despite these promising potential effects of the social media humor around Harris, there are also issues around political comedy coverage that will certainly have been of concern to Harris’ campaign this election season. In the past, political comedy has been found to have quite positive effects, encouraging political learning, fostering political knowledge acquisition and political debate (Leicht 2023a). But what if what audiences learn is perpetuating gendered stereotypes and other biases? Cultivation theory explains how gendered media representations are associated with the development of gendered biases among audiences (Aley and Hahn 2020; Gerbner et al. 2002; Scharrer and Blackburn 2018; Ward and Grower 2020). If an individual is repeatedly exposed to gendered stereotypes in media, they are more likely to develop similar stereotypical beliefs about gender and social roles. Given that SNL and other political comedy programs are clearly a news source for a substantial share of the US population (ANES 2021; Gottfried et al. 2016), it is important to consider the potential audience effects, including effects of gendered biases in the coverage. And while recent research has observed declines in gendered biases in more traditional political news reporting (Bauer 2019; Conroy et al. 2020; Godbole et al. 2019; Hayes and Lawless 2015, 2016; Scott 2022; Van der Pas and Aaldering 2020), the same does not seem to be the case for political comedy coverage of the current election cycle.

Initial observations about SNL coverage of the election provide a very illustrative example of this. Overall, the SNL coverage has been highly gendered. While Trump is framed through his role as the former president, Harris is more commonly framed through her familial role rather than her role as vice president. She is referred to as the “fun aunt” or “Momala” and shown in domestic or family settings, for instance in her living room with her husband Doug Emhoff, whose masculinity is questioned in several of the sketches for supporting his wife and her political ambitions. Harris is also sexualized in several of the sketches. For instance, in the October 19 cold open (first sketch of the show), Bret Baier (played by Alec Baldwin) asks Harris (played by Maya Rudolph) whether she is aware that she is “very sexy when [she’s] angry.” In addition to the sexualization, this comment perpetuates the gendered stereotype of the “angry woman” in politics (Clifton 2020). SNL is also more likely to refer to Harris by her first name while referring to Trump by his last name, another gendered difference that is often associated with the infantilization of women in politics (Davis 2024; Uscinski and Goren 2011).

That SNL is playing on gendered stereotypes in its election coverage is not new. In my analysis of SNL’s coverage of the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections (Leicht 2024a), I found that gendered biases were used for the comedic characterization of several of the candidates, including both women and men. I further found that representations of women candidates reinforced the gender double bind for women politicians. This shows how women candidates are facing difficulties because characteristics associated with their gender do not fit perceptions of the highly masculinized political leadership role – and a perceived inconsistency between gender and social roles can lower evaluations of candidates, leading to electoral consequences (Conroy et al. 2020; Eagly and Karau 2002; Godbole et al. 2019; Schneider and Bos 2019).

How feminist comedy can counter harmful gendered stereotypes

But there is also some good news. The 2016 and 2020 SNL coverage reflected elements of feminist comedy, characterized by humor that is specifically directed at others to “share a common disbelief in women’s powerlessness” (Bunkers 1997; Weinhold and Bodkin 2017) and call attention to gendered biases and sexism (Leicht 2024a). For instance, several sketches about Warren in the 2020 Democratic Primaries featured explicit criticism of people questioning women’s ability to lead.

SNL’s coverage of the 2024 election, while highly gendered, has also featured at least some elements of such feminist humor. In one sketch, Harris (portrayed by Maya Rudolph) is asked how she is not winning the election by a landslide given her evident qualifications. Her response is a pained laugh accompanied by the comment “That’s a question I scream into my pillow every morning.”

As evidenced by previous research and audience data, political comedy has substantial influence on public opinion and political behavior in the United States. While political comedy coverage of Harris has been highly gendered in this election, her own unique strategy of engaging political humor on social media, prioritizing a late-night interview over more traditional interviews, and taking time out of her pre-election schedule to appear on SNL could be an effective counter strategy to biased humor. Just how effective it may have been and how this election’s gendered biases in political comedy coverage influenced the American voting public will have to be determined in future research.

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Author Bio

Dr. Croline Leicht is a Tutor in Media, Culture and Society at the University of Glasgow and a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Southampton where she was awarded her PhD in Politics in June 2024. Her research focuses on the intersection of gender, media and politics, with a focus on US politics and modern political communication. In her doctoral thesis, Caroline examined the role of gender in political comedy coverage of elections and associated cultivation effects. Caroline regularly provides expert commentary to national and international news media outlets.

Twitter/X: @carolineleicht

Website: https://carolinevleicht.weebly.com/

E-Mail: Caroline.Leicht@glasgow.ac.uk

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Image Credit

Image 1/Header: This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

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