Were the most covered events by ten major news publications focused on the Election or were there other stories that took the spotlight? In the Events page of the Media Bias Detector, these were the events that received the most media attention leading up to Election Day:

Top events on Tuesday 11/5:

Divided America Votes included articles that discussed potential outcomes of the election and final commentary on the race. Articles within 2024 Election: Trump vs. Harris focused on the latest updates on battleground states and J.D. Vance calling Kamala Harris “trash” as a clap back to Biden’s recent “garbage” remark he made towards Trump’s Madison Square Garden Rally.

On 11/4:

The eve of the election saw a spike in election-related coverage as expected, and here is a breakdown of the Harris vs. Trump Showdown:

What is most notable about these facts is that they were mainly focused on Harris, and not Trump; Trump is only mentioned in regards to polling statistics and not an actual news event. The tone of these facts also leaned more positive, emphasizing the historical nature of her candidacy as potentially the first female, Black and South Asian U.S. president. Outlets also covered her increasing appeal to voters who have traditionally leaned Republican, as seen in coverage on her recents polls in Iowa.

On 11/3:

Trump-Harris 2024 Campaign broken down into the TOP FACTS looks like this:

As expected, coverage on the Horse Race is extensive with less attention given to Kamala Harris’s policies, despite Harris providing those policy details after the New York Times criticized her on multiple occasions that she hadn’t talked about her policies enough throughout her campaign. The prioritization of the Horse Race over coverage of Kamala Harris’s policies could partly explain why Americans aren’t really able to differentiate between Kamala Harris’s policies to those of Donald Trump’s, as discussed by economist Justin Wolfers.

The third fact which is on RFK Jr.’s proposal to remove fluoride from water has put him back in the spotlight for his “health freedom” policies, which has gained more traction recently as Trump has expressed support for some of RFK’s outlandish, anti-science proposals. Coverage on RFK Jr. dwindled after he formally dropped out of the presidential election in August but his recent policy proposals have hinted at how he will shape the Trump administration.

On 11/2:

The day before, the most covered story was on Peanut the Squirrel who was euthanized by New York officials due to rabies concerns. Somehow this tragedy became political, where J.D. Vance made several references to Peanut at a Trump Rally in North Carolina. He mentioned that Trump was “fired up” about Peanut and that Peanut was the “Elon Musk of squirrels” a bizarre comment likening the squirrel to a symbol of the Republican Party and as an example of “government overreach.” Vance also tied Peanut to the border crisis, saying that “the same government that doesn’t care about hundreds of thousands of immigrant criminals coming to our country doesn’t want us to have pets.”

And on 11/1:

The floods in Spain which began on October 29 dominated the front pages of major publishers and global news on 11/1 despite the top stories in the past month consistently covering the Presidential Election. Notably, the second most covered story is the White House's alleged alteration of the transcript where Joe Biden made his “garbage” remark after Trump’s Madison Square Garden Rally; the original event, Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Comment Fallout, was the most covered story on 10/30. This event made up 42 article clusters, making it the 2nd most covered event in the last month, to the Vance vs. Waltz debate.

As seen in the Events page of the Media Bias Detector, some global news events temporarily shifted media attention in the midst of a high-stakes election campaign. While these global events dominated headlines for a few days, there were other election related events that were under-reported or didn’t even make it into the news cycle. What were these events and why did they receive less coverage compared to others that were covered heavily during the election campaigns?