Two on-air figures who stepped back from TV station roles to run for governor have both lost their elections. Mark Ronchetti, who resigned as chief meteorologist at KRQE Albuquerque last year to run for New Mexico governor, lost the election to the Democratic incumbent, Michelle Lujan Grisham. And Kari Lake, who spent 22 years on the air at KSAZ Phoenix, has lost the Arizona governor’s race to Democrat Katie Hobbs. 

Lake spent 27 years in local TV. She retired in March 2021 and announced her candidacy in June 2021. “I treasured my career, and that job. It meant the world to me for all those years,” she said in a “My Story” video on her website. 

But Lake grew mistrustful toward local TV, and the media in general. “I realized there was an agenda being proposed by the media,” she said, “and I didn’t want to be part of that agenda.”

Also: C-SPAN To Cover Trump Announcement Live

She went on to call the media “unethical”, “biased” and “completely immoral.”

KSAZ is owned by Fox Television Stations. 

Lake spoke about the dilemma of giving up the salary of a big-city anchor, but shared how a Bible verse encouraged her to make the break from local TV. 

B+C reached out to Lake to speak about her career in broadcasting in April. Lake was not available to speak. 

Her introductory video details Lake’s childhood in rural Iowa, touches on her work as a janitor in a drug treatment center, shares a few interactions with God as Lake sought guidance, and words of praise from President Trump. She vowed to finish Trump’s efforts to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. 

Lake said her janitorial stint better prepared her for being governor than anchoring in Phoenix did. Being a janitor, she said, “might be the job that prepares me most for politics.”

The tight governor’s race was called the night of November 14, but Lake isn’t giving in. “Arizonans know BS when they see it,” she tweeted, one of several Twitter posts from Lake questioning the validity of the election. 

Same goes for Trump. “Wow! They just took the election away from Kari Lake. It’s really bad out there!” he wrote on Truth Social. 

Ronchetti had vowed to be “a governor who will fight to empower and encourage small businesses. A governor who will fight for parents and kids to ensure they get the education they deserve. A governor who will take our rapidly growing crime rate seriously and will take steps to make our cities and border safer. Most importantly, I’ll be a governor that does more than talk. I’ll listen and find solutions that actually work."

Nexstar owns KRQE. 

On November 10, Ronchetti shared on Twitter, “Thank you, New Mexico. It was an honor to run for Governor of this beautiful state.”

Another TV figure, Dr. Mehmet Oz, lost the election for Pennsylvania senator. Oz covered health matters on The Oprah Winfrey Show before hosting syndicated The Dr. Oz Show, which lasted for 13 seasons. ■

Ex-president Donald Trump is trying to gin up a new round of election denying as the Republican party faces a much more dour outcome than it and many Democrats and pollsters had anticipated.

In the latest roundup of his online statements over the past few days, Trump tried to sew doubt about the Pennsylvania election, in which Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz, who Trump endorsed, lost to Pennsylvania Lieutenant Gov. John Fetterman, who is recovering from a stroke.

Trump mocked that recovery, asking how Oz could lose to someone who "who can’t string together two sentences," and called Pennsylvania a corrupt state. He repeated his unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the state in 2020.

Also: Media Figures Figure Prominently in Crucial Midterms

Trump earlier in the week had mocked his potential rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, Trump said on his Truth Social website: "Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?) in Virginia couldn’t have won without me."

Of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump mockingly called him Gov. Ron Sanctimonius, "an average Republican governor with great public relations."

Finally, perhaps in response to all the media outlets pointing to his increasingly threadbare coattails as costing any number of Republican candidates their elections, Trump suggested any success the media had, or didn't have, was all about him.

"If CNN were smart, they’d open up a Conservative network, only have me on, and it would be the most successful network in History," he wrote. "Fox only made it because of me, Twitter only made it because of me, and even Facebook is now in the tubes, having lost almost $90 billion in value since I was taken off, which was considered one of the biggest mistakes in business over the last two years..."

Trump continues to suggest he will announce a 2024 presidential run this coming Tuesday (Nov. 15) at his Mar-a-Lago estate, though given Republicans' underperformance in what was billed as a potential "red wave" midterm, it is unclear how many will be lining up behind him this time around. ■

Neither the glow of TV lights nor the backing of Donald Trump were apparently able to secure victory for the highest-profile TV figure seeking elected office in the midterms.

While control of the House and Senate, somewhat surprisingly, still hung in the balance Wednesday morning (November 9), Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat, had been declared the winner by multiple news outlets for the open Senate seat against Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican candidate.

The race had been essentially a dead heat in the polls, but with Oz appearing to gain momentum toward the end of the race.

Oprah Winfrey, whose talk show launched Oz's own syndicated show, wound up endorsing Fetterman.

In Arizona, Democrat Katie Hobbs was leading former KSAZ Phoenix news anchor and current Trump cheerleader Kari Lake, who has branded her former profession fake news pushing "lies and propaganda," but the election was still too close to call.

In New Mexico, incumbent Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham was re-elected, defeating another Republican candidate formerly of the TV news ranks, former KRQE Albuquerque meteorologist Mark Ronchetti.

One former broadcaster who fared better was incumbent Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar. Salazar, whose media career included stints at MegaTV, CNN Latino, Telemundo and WDFL Miami, retained her seat, defeating state Sen. Annette Taddeo. ■

Former President Donald Trump is branding Facebook’s pre-election restrictions on ads about elections and social issues as part of a plot by Big Tech and the media against him and Republican candidates in the midterm elections.

The restriction, which extended from Tuesday, November 1, through 11:59 p.m. PT on Tuesday, November 8, means the platform is "not hosting any ads about social issues, elections or politics in the U.S." It applies to candidates and issues on both sides of the political aisle.

Also: Media Figures Figure Prominently in Midterms

In a November 7 email to supporters trumpeted as "Breaking News" in red letters, Trump cited reports that Facebook parent Meta was "implementing a restriction period for ads about social issues, elections, or politics in the U.S. for the week leading up to the General Election Day."

Facebook had a similar restriction on the 2020 election following widespread pushback on the use of social media by outside actors and others to try to game the U.S. political system.

As for breaking news, Facebook itself talked openly about the repeat "restriction period" in a blog back in late September.  

While Meta said that the takeaway from the 2020 restriction was that it "achieves the right balance of giving campaigns a voice while providing additional time for scrutiny of issue, electoral and political ads in the Ad Library," Trump saw a more nefarious reason.

Also: Donald Trump Threatens More Lawsuits Against Media

"We know EXACTLY what this is: Big Tech is mercilessly censoring President Trump and true America First Patriots like YOU right before the most crucial Election in our Nation’s history," the ex-president wrote, suggesting that Facebook’s move was a Democrat-backed effort to keep Republicans from taking over control of the House or Senate. The former result is expected and the latter a toss-up, though the Senate is trending in Republicans' favor according to political handicapping site Fivethirtyeight.com.

The email's dire warnings, like most of Trump's emails, had as their goal raising more money for Republican candidates. Supporters and anyone else on the former president's email list, which includes some reporters, were asked to rush to their wallets and pocketbooks to stop the Democrats and their plot.

As this story was being written, the 14th Trump email arrived in this reporter's inbox, with this message: "It's obvious that the Fake News media is pro-DEMOCRAT when it comes to who they want to win today. I've never been able to trust what the Fake News media says, and I’m not about to start now."

The email, which per usual had a request for money at the end, billed itself as the only "Official Trump 2022 Midterm Exit Poll — the ONLY accurate poll out there." Its questions included "Which do you identify as, an American or a Socialist?" and "Who did you vote for in 2016, Crooked Hillary or Donald Trump?" ▪️

Election Day dawned Tuesday (Nov. 8) with former TV personalities in the political spotlight.

The highest-profile of those, former reality TV figure and ex-President Donald Trump, was hinting Monday at a big announcement coming Tuesday evening, likely that he would be running again in 2024.

It was unclear what effect, if any, the hinting at that announcement would have on Republican races in the midterms beyond taking some of the spotlight away from them and putting it on Trump, who clearly revels in the attention.

Meanwhile, the bid of one of the Republican candidates Trump has endorsed, doctor and syndicated TV talk show personality Mehmet Oz, for the open Senate seat against Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a recovering stroke victim, which could well determine which party gets control of the Senate. Given that Republicans appear to be pretty much of a lock to regain the House, that race could help determine whether Republicans take both House and Senate.

Political handicapping site FiveThirtyEight gives Oz a slight edge (a 57 in 100 chance) to defeat Fetterman given that while it is essentially a dead heat, he has been picking up momentum in recent weeks, erasing what had been a three-point lead two weeks ago. 

If Republicans win the House as expected, TV will likely continue to be a political player as they have vowed to hold their own high-profile oversight hearings after Democrats held televised hearings on Trump's impeachments and the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

In Arizona, the governor’s race has drawn national attention for the rise of former TV anchor Kari Lake, a big Trump supporter. who is leading Democrat Katie Hobbs by a couple of percentage points in an average of over a dozen polls. 

While she was a successful TV anchor for over two decades at Fox's KSAZ Phoenix — she only quit in March of last year — the outspoken Lake has gained attention for repudiating the media in which she worked for two decades. 

Lake was on leave from KSAZ and made a video explaining her exit. She said the media needed a wider range of viewpoints and she no longer felt proud as a member of the media. She thanked the station even as she suggested she was being asked to report news that was not “fully truthful” or only told “part of the story.”

“The fake news media is going down,” she said at a recent campaign event. “Nobody is listening to you anymore,” she said, adding that the media was “pushing lies and propaganda” and “losing all its power.” ▪️

If the presidential Election Day is the Super Bowl for reporters who cover politics, the midterms represent the NFL’s conference championships. Networks and stations alike are set to cover the big stories November 8 — and thereafter, should the situation call for it.

Showtime got things going with a midterm-themed episode of The Circus called Here Comes the Flood on Sunday, November 6.

On the local level, Fox-owned WAGA Atlanta turned on the midterm coverage Monday, November 7 with the hour-long special Road to November. Races to be covered in the region include the Senate battle between Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker and the governor campaign between incumbent Brian Kemp and Dem challenger Stacey Abrams.

Fox’s KRIV Houston posted the 30-minute You Decide 2022 special to the station website and to its YouTube Channel. Greg Groogan anchors.

The Fox group’s streaming net LiveNOW goes live at 5 a.m. ET on Election Day, with station reporters covering the local races.  

NBC’s owned stations will deliver NBC News coverage in prime, while detailing the local races live on their mobile apps and their local FAST channels on Peacock, Samsung TV and Roku. NBCUniversal Local’s LX News begins LXtion 2022 at 6 p.m. ET, with political editor Noah Pransky leading the coverage. He gets assistance from Mackenzie Behm in Pennsylvania and Chase Cain in Florida, among others.  

Gray Television’s streaming news net Local News Live will go live on Gray station sites, OTT platforms and Facebook Live from 7 p.m. until midnight November 8. Gray TV White House correspondent Jon Decker and Local News Live anchor Ryan Piers lead coverage.

Nexstar’s NewsNation coverage will be co-hosted by Chris Cuomo and Leland Vittert. Broadcasting from network headquarters in Chicago, NewsNation begins coverage at 6 p.m. ET and goes until 3 a.m.

CBS News’ America Decides: Campaign ‘22 is anchored at Times Square by Norah O’Donnell, with Gayle King, John Dickerson and Margaret Brennan among those pitching in.

For the first time, CBS News has a Democracy Desk on the set.

Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie, Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell lead coverage at NBC News, with Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace and Joy Reid on MSNBC. CNBC has Shepard Smith while Julio Vaqueiro and Arantxa Loizaga anchor on Noticias Telemundo.

David Muir runs the show at ABC News, with the likes of Linsey Davis, Jonathan Karl, Cecilia Vega and Martha Raddatz helping out.

Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum anchor on Fox News Channel November 8, starting at 6 p.m. ET. America’s Newsroom co-anchor Bill Hemmer analyzes results in real time on the so-called “Bill-Board” throughout Democracy 2022. Fox News’s decision desk will be run by Arnon Mishkin.

CNN will have Anderson Cooper in the 8 p.m. slot and Jake Tapper at 9 p.m. on Election Night, before he shifts to the 4-6 p.m. slot after the election. Chief national correspondent John King will of course be breaking things down state by state. He called the midterms the “most complicated” of the many he’s covered over the decades. “We live in an age of volatility,” King said.

CNN said 35 Senate seats are on the ballot, and all 435 House spots. Plus, 36 out of 50 stations have gubernatorial elections.

Once the madness is over, MSNBC’s Morning Joe will broadcast in front of a live studio audience Wednesday morning, November 9, from Rockefeller Center. That goes from 6 to 10 a.m. ET and Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist host.

Road to November is a regular weekly show on WAGA. On November 10, it will cover what happened in the surely eventful days before. ■

DirecTV has appealed to two station groups, Mission Broadcasting and White Knight Broadcasting, proposing that a retrans battle that has resulted in the blackout of 27 local outlets be shelved until after the Nov. 8 midterm elections. 

“DirecTV has a standing offer to both Mission and White Knight, strongly urging the two broadcasters to return all stations immediately to impacted DirecTV customers in 25 Nielsen DMAs,” DirecTV said in a statement. ”In return, DirecTV will pay Mission and White Knight whatever higher retransmission consent rates the parties eventually agree upon retroactively to the date the signals are reinstated.”

Twenty-five Mission affiliates were pulled off DirecTV satellite, DirecTV Stream and U-verse TV late last week amid failing negotiations for a new broadcast retransmission agreement. And two more outlets in Texas owned by White Knight met a similar fate earlier this month.

Both station groups are operated under contract by much larger Nexstar Media Group, which also currently has a blackout going on Verizon Fios TV.

“This is a critical time in American political life,” DirecTV added. “We are less than two weeks from one of the most important Congressional midterm elections in American history, and gubernatorial elections in 36 states. The results of this midterm will have a profound impact on some of the most important political, public health and economic issues of our time.”

Mission has yet to comment on its KeepMyStation portal.

Of course, with some estimates pegging midterm advertising spending to surpass $10 billion, it's an important time for the bottom lines of broadcasters, pay TV operators and anyone else in the business of selling local TV ad time. ■

DirecTV is asking the 27 stations blacked out to its subscribers because of a retransmission consent fee dispute to return their signals through Election Day.

The satellite-TV company is offering to pay the stations whatever new rate winds up being negotiated retroactively to the return of the signals.

The stations cover about 4 million homes in 25 markets and are owned by Mission Broadcasting and White Knight Broadcasting.

DirecTV maintains the stations are operated by giant broadcaster Nexstar Media Group, and that Nexstar is playing a role in trying to secure higher rates for the stations.

“Despite DirecTV’s allegations, Nexstar is not a party to these negotiations and does not control any of these television stations,” Nexstar spokesman Gary Weitman said. ”These stations are owned by Mission Broadcasting, Inc., and White Knight Broadcasting, not Nexstar.” 

Also: Nexstar Stations Go Dark In Fee Dispute With Verizon Fios

Mission had no comment on DirecTV's request. “Mission has a long track record of negotiating fairly and avoiding service interruptions in our markets, and we don’t want viewers in our local markets to miss any college or NFL football, the World Series, World Cup, or the vitally important local news, sports, and weather coverage we deliver every day,” the company said in a statement a few days after the blackout began.

The White Knight stations went dark on DirecTV on October 7. The Mission stations went dark October 21.

“This is a critical time in American political life. We are less than two weeks from one of the most important Congressional midterm elections in American History, and gubernatorial elections in 36 states,” DirecTV said in a press release. ”The results of this midterm will have a profound impact on some of the most important political, public health and economic issues of our time.”

It is also an important time for political advertising.

DirecTV noted that during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mission and Nexstar were locked in a retransmission battle with Dish Network, but restored their signals to keep citizens informed about the health crisis.

“DirecTV now calls upon Mission and White Knight to return stations operated by Nexstar through the conclusion of the critical midterm elections while the parties continue to work privately toward a new agreement,” the release said. ■

Giant broadcaster Nexstar Media Group said the stations it operates will host nearly 50 statewide and local candidate debates and forums as part of its political coverage during this midterm election cycle.

In the key states of Ohio, George and Pennsylvania, Nexstar stations will air the only debates among the candidates for U.S. Senate. Its stations will also show the candidates for governor facing off in Texas and Illinois.

Nexstar's activity comes in a year that will be marked by record campaign spending, most of which will go to local broadcasters. Nexstar had $86.7 million of political ad revenue in the second quarter and said political ad revenue was pacing 40% ahead of 2020 levels.

"Every day, Nexstar stations help strengthen our communities by providing a trusted platform where people can discuss local issues, learn about their neighbors and gather in times of celebration or in times of difficulty," Nexstar president of broadcasting Andrew Alvord said. "This midterm election season, Nexstar is proud to harness the power of our scale and resources to bring more candidate debates and forums to prospective voters across more platforms than ever before.

"As always, our award-winning news anchors and reporters remain committed to serving the interests of voters across the country by delivering exclusive local news content and unbiased political coverage that enables them to make informed decisions on election day," Alvord said.

Debates will be seen on 88 Nexstar stations in 22 states. The company is also providing access to the events to some TV and radio stations it doesn't own.

In Pennsylvania, a debate between Senate candidates John Fetterman and Dr. Mehmet Oz will be hosted by Nexstar's WHTM Harrisburg. In addition to Nexstar's stations in Philadelphia and four other markets in the state, the debate will air on Cox Media Group's WPXI Pittsburgh.

Some of the debates have also aired nationally on Nexstar's NewsNation cable channel. ■

C-SPAN will be blanketing cable and the internet this week with a plethora of debates in advance of the midterm elections.

C-SPAN's suite of public affairs channels and streams is funded by the cable industry as a public service.

For those looking to tune in to their local race, or one of interest elsewhere, here is the lineup, according to C-SPAN:

Wednesday, October 12

• Maryland Gubernatorial Debate — C-SPAN, 8:30 p.m. ET

Thursday, October 13

• Wisconsin Senate Debate (Live) — C-SPAN, C-SPAN Radio, C-SPAN.org and C-SPAN Now app, 7 p.m. ET

Friday, October 14

• Wisconsin Gubernatorial Debate (Live) — C-SPAN, C-SPAN Radio, C-SPAN.org and C-SPAN Now app, 8 p.m. ET 
• Vermont Senate Debate (archived from Oct. 6) — C-SPAN, 9 p.m. ET. 
• Colorado Governor Debate (from last Thursday) — C-SPAN, 10 p.m. ET

Saturday, October 15

C-SPAN will air all of the above in a block, plus some other debates from earlier in the week, including the New Jersey 7th Congressional District, Minnesota 2nd Congressional District and Colorado 3rd Congressional District.

Sunday, October 16

• Georgia 14th District (Live) — C-SPAN, 3:45 p.m. ET 
• Indiana Senate Debate (Live) — C-SPAN, 7 p.m. ET ■

Midterms, a three-part documentary series covering this year's political races in Iowa, Colorado and North Carolina, has been scheduled to air on Al Jazeera America beginning Sunday, October 19. The subsequent episodes will air the following two weeks, on Sunday, October 26 and Sunday, November 2. 

The first episode of the series will focus on the race for the Senate seat in Iowa between Democratic Congressman Bruce Braley and Republican State Senator Joni Ernst, as well as the race for a seat in the House of Representatives. The next episode will focus on former Democratic Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff's attempt to unseat Republican incumbent Mike Coffman as represntative of the state's 6th district. The final episode follows North Carolina Speaker of the House Thom Tillis's challenge of Democratic incumbent Senator Kay Hagan. 

All three episodes of the series directed by AJ Schnack, whose 2013 film Caucus profiled the 2011 Republican race in the Iowa Caucus. The series is intended to present an unbiased portrayal of the American congressional election cycle.

"We want the audience to have a close-up, intimate portrait of these candidates and the issues that will define 2014," said Schnack in a release. "We're thrilled to be working with Al Jazeera America to bring viewers a truly unprecedented, bi-partisan look at these races as they are unfolding."