Mainstream Media Outlets Also Experience Significant Decreases
The 20 most popular right-wing news websites all posted declines in year-over-year (YOY) visits in May, according to TheRighting’s exclusive analysis of mobile and desktop traffic based on Similarweb data. Ninety percent of the top 20 right-wing sites monitored by TheRighting experienced double-digit declines. Only two sites – the Epoch Times (-2%) and Truth Social (-9%) – had single-digit drops.
“It’s certainly an alarming development for legacy media outlets on both the right and left but not a surprising one,” noted Howard Polskin, President, TheRighting. “The trend in 2026 has definitely been downward, but it feels like the descent is accelerating despite major events like the war with Iran which should have attracted visits. May’s number represent the first time this year that every site I track has shown negative year-over-year growth. I would attribute some of it to the exponential growth of news and opinion options that are multiplying by the day on a variety of platforms.”
All three mainstream news websites TheRighting tracks on a regular basis had YOY decreases in visits: The Washington Post (-24%), CNN (-23%) and The NY Times (-5%).
YOY Winners and Losers Among Top 20 Right-Wing News Websites, May 2026
(by percentage decrease of visits from year ago)
Winners
–(None)
Losers
–The Federalist (-52%)
–Daily Wire (-47%)
–The Blaze (-46%)
A Note About Methodology
TheRighting uses data from Similarweb, the digital market intelligence company, to measure visits to websites. Until its December 2024 report, TheRighting relied on data from Comscore which measured unique visitors to websites.
