Apple News, one of the most influential digital news aggregation apps, failed to promote stories about one of the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) largest financial crises in its history despite the national implications of the matter.
The DNC’s cash-on-hand balance is currently less than its total debt, which has varied between $15 million and $18 million in recent months, primarily due to a loan secured with its headquarters as collateral. The financial woes at the DNC stand in stark contrast to its political rival, the Republican National Committee, and its sister organizations, the NRSC and NRCC, which most recently disclosed that they collectively had more than $230 million in the bank and no debt.
The DNC’s multimillion-dollar debt, much of which stems from former Vice President Kamala Harris’s failed presidential campaign in 2024 and is the largest debt it has faced since 2016, is also one of its most embarrassing financial crises, raising questions about party leadership, financial management and the fallout from the 2024 campaign.
MRC’s Findings:
- Apple News failed to promote a single story about the DNC’s debt among its top 20 stories from Jan. 1 through Sept. 28, effectively shielding the Democrat shortfall from public view less than a year into President Donald Trump’s second term and months ahead of the 2026 midterms.
- The omission is no small matter given that party leaders have been loudly sounding alarm bells for months, resulting in widespread coverage from a wide variety of ideologically diverse news outlets during the nine months. No less than 78 stories about the DNC’s debt were published by those outlets, and none of them were promoted by Apple News.
- At least 14 stories about the DNC debt that Apple News could have shared were published by one of Apple News’ top 10 most promoted outlets.
Why Apple News’ Bias by Omission Matters
Apple News has effectively become one of the fastest-growing gatekeepers of information, amassing 125 million monthly views. Its influence only stands to grow as the news app comes preinstalled on virtually every modern iPhone, while its ability to drive massive audiences has proven lucrative for the news outlets it promotes.
In some cases, publishers have credited Apple News with throwing a lifeline to failing news outlets. By the media’s own accounts, stories promoted by Apple News can receive anywhere from 1 million and to as many as 20 million pageviews.
In practice, Apple News’ massive reach and decision not to promote the DNC’s cash blunder means that millions of Americans who rely on the news aggregator for information were kept in the dark about the financial crisis plaguing Democrats.
Apple’s bias by omission is par for the course, as revealed in previous MRC analyses. For instance, MRC found that Apple News, alongside its competitor Google News, failed to promote any coverage of scandals dogging Democratic Senate candidates Graham Platner of Maine and Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan.
Separate MRC analyses have found that Apple News’ editors have largely excluded right-leaning outlets from its top 20 morning stories while repeatedly promoting some of the most left-leaning news outlets in the country.
The DNC Debt Crisis Coverage Apple News Left Out
The DNC, the Democratic Party’s main governing body and national organization, is the recipient of Apple News's apparent strategic editorial decision.
The financial struggles of the DNC began after Vice President Kamala Harris plowed through $1.5 billion in her failed presidential campaign in 2024. Her campaign left the DNC with an enormous debt of $20.5 million, prompting the committee to take out a $15 million loan in October 2025 to support its efforts in the off-year elections for the governors of Virginia and New Jersey. But despite the respective victories in those elections, the DNC kicked off 2026 with $17.5 million in debt, as reported by the left-wing New York Times.
The staggering debt, coming ahead of what the DNC itself billed as the “critical midterm elections,” served as a major sign of political struggle for the party, according to several news outlets. The last time the party was in this much debt was in February 2014, when it reported owing nearly $16 million.
In response, efforts to remove DNC Chair Ken Martin began, donors started directing their contributions to other leftist groups and some Democrats started to question the party's "very purpose entirely," as noted by Politico.
The DNC Debt Story Was Everywhere, Except on Apple News
Apple News’ decision not to promote the DNC budgetary shortfall is notable given the abundance of coverage available, particularly stories from a politically diverse pool of outlets that either focused on or mentioned the DNC’s debt controversy.
MRC identified a total of 78 stories from various news outlets, including Fox News, the New York Post and the Washington Examiner, as well as Politico and others. Out of the 78 stories, 14 were from outlets that Apple News frequently promoted in its top 10. These publications included The Guardian, The New York Times (Apple News publishes Times’ sports page The Athletic), The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and USA Today.
The diverse sources of online stories mean that Apple News had plenty of opportunities to highlight the controversy in its daily offerings.
Among the headlines Apple News could have promoted but didn’t were:
- “Debt-ridden Democrats tap a surprising asset as collateral for $15M loan,” by Fox News, published July 27.
- “Inside the Phone-Throwing Drama at the Troubled, Broke Democratic Party,” by The New York Times, published July 26.
- “Some Democratic donors frustrated with DNC chair Ken Martin amid fundraising woes,” by ABC News, published May 7.
- “DNC cash crunch persists despite Democratic momentum heading into 2026,” by the Washington Examiner, published April 25.
- “The DNC expected big money after big Democratic wins. It never came,” by The Washington Post, published April 10.
- “DNC chair faces growing scrutiny amid financial pressure and internal turmoil,” by The Guardian, published July 27.
- “Raging DNC boss Ken Martin threw phone at aide’s desk as committee forced to put up HQ as loan collateral: report,” by the New York Post, published July 26.\
- “‘It’s beyond embarrassing’: Ken Martin and the DNC have a 2028 problem, donors warn,” by Politico, published July 31.
Apple’s omission of the Democrats’ monetary woes is particularly striking because Apple News’ top stories are manually curated by human editors, in contrast to competitors such as Google News and Microsoft’s MSN, which purportedly rely more on algorithmic selection. In other words, Apple’s editors passed over a major political story despite extensive coverage from outlets the news app routinely promotes. Why did it choose not to cover the DNC debt controversy? Only Apple can say.
MRC’s findings come on the heels of a separate analysis showing that the morning and evening shows on ABC, CBS and NBC also omitted coverage of another DNC-tied scandal: allegations that ActBlue failed to block potentially unlawful foreign donations. MRC reported on Sept. 23 that ABC News, CBS News and NBC News had aired no coverage of the ActBlue allegations from Sept. 14 through Sept. 21, a period that overlapped with the timeline examined in this study. The allegations, which could potentially trigger criminal investigations, stemmed from a 112-page report released by the House Judiciary, Oversight and Administration committees.
Methodology: The Media Research Center analyzed the top 20 stories promoted by Apple News at approximately 8:30 a.m. ET from Jan. 1, 2026 through Sept. 28, 2026 for the specific search terms “DNC,” “RNC,” “Democrat,” “Martin,” “Fundraising,” “FEC,” “Debt,” “Deficit,” and “National Committee.” Specifically, MRC sought to identify stories pertaining to the Democratic National Committee’s debt crisis and related topics.
MRC researchers searched online for stories about the DNC’s debt from Jan. 1 through Sept. 28 that Apple News could have promoted among its top 20 stories, resulting in a tally of 78 stories. Of those, MRC identified 10 stories from outlets that Apple News routinely features among its top 20. Researchers also verified that the publishers of the identified stories were available on Apple News, addressing potential claims that the platform could not have featured them. Apple News does not feature The New York Times itself, though it does offer the newspaper’s sports section, The Athletic.
