The candidate’s bluster and mannerisms were ripe for late-night jokes. But a deeper shift had taken hold. Since the early 1990s, late-night hosts began to increasingly target Republican election candidates more often than Democrats, according to an analysis by political scientists Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter.
“In 2020, when we looked at the jokes that were devoted to Trump or [Joe] Biden, Trump got 96% of the jokes,” says Mr. Farnsworth, co-author of “Late-Night in Washington.”
