During its five shows during the fall presidential campaign from September 28 through November 2, a Media Research Center study found that NBC’s Saturday Night Live Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che told a total of 38 jokes about Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Of these, 34, or 89 percent, were about Trump.
Additionally, MRC analysts counted five jokes about JD Vance and one for Tim Walz, or 83 percent to 17 percent. Together, the 39-5 slant against the GOP ticket equates to 87 percent.
An early MRC study found that 98 percent of the daily late night comedy shows’ jokes targeted Trump, but that should not lead one to think SNL was lighter on Trump. A nearly 9:1 ratio is still wildly imbalanced and having a sample size of nearly 1,400 fewer jokes over 131 fewer episodes can give a false impression that SNL was fairer to Trump.
In fact, SNL got more imbalanced as the campaign proceeded. On September 28, Jost and Che were relatively equal with a 5-2 joke count against Trump. Neither Vance nor Walz was targeted that week. The following week, October 5, saw the tally go 3-0 against Trump and 3-1 against Vance.
On October 12, the quantity of Trump jokes started to pick up as he was joked about eight times to Harris’s one. Vance was targeted twice while Walz escaped ridicule. On the 19th, Trump jokes outnumbered Harris jokes 9-0, while both VP contenders escaped Jost and Che’s jesting. After a week off, the final pre-election episode on November 2 featured nine Trump jokes and only one Harris joke. Again, Vance and Walz were not mentioned.
All though cold opens were not a part of this study, Harris herself appeared on November 2 to urge the audience to vote for her. That was also the episode where Jost and Che went after Trump the hardest.
One Che joke claimed Trump is a Nazi: “Donald Trump held a rally in Madison Square Garden and honestly, it was all white. Speakers hurled insults at minority groups, used Nazi rhetoric, and suggested that Democrats should be slaughtered, but this lady has a weird laugh, so I still can't decide. Donald Trump defended himself from claims that he's a fascist, saying I am the opposite of a Nazi. Yeah, but opposites attract, so.”
That bit about Harris’s laugh was the lone joke about Harris and even that was part of a plea for viewers to vote for her. Also, the part about opposites attracting was shown with a picture of neo-Nazi boaters showing up at a MAGA boat parade, but Che left out the part where the MAGA crowd sprayed water on the intruders, swore at them, and flipped them off.
Another November 2 Che joke was “I've been trying to figure out this whole time why Donald Trump even wants to be president. He's like 80-years old, his brain is mush. Someone tried to kill him twice. And yet he's in a garbage truck pretending to like Wisconsin? What's in it for this guy? But then I realized if he doesn't win this race, he could go to jail, like literally. His sentencing is coming up right after the election. That's why he's blowing that microphone. He’s trying to suck his way to freedom.”
Just like their daily show colleagues, SNL tried its best to drag Harris across the finish line, but it did not work. Perhaps 90 percent joke rates aren't the way to endear yourself to the whole country.
