The Free Press and Washington Times Lead Right-Wing News Websites in Percentage Gains
For the fourth consecutive month, year-over-year (YOY) visits to the Trump-controlled Truth Social declined, according to TheRighting’s exclusive analysis of mobile and desktop traffic based on Similarweb data in August 2026.
The site attracted 13,800,000 visits last month, down 10% from August 2025 when it recorded 15,400,000 visits. The last month Truth Social showed a gain in visits was April 2026 when it posted a 45% YOY increase based on 48,800,000 visits, the largest number of visits in 2026.
“Because the president is overwhelmingly the most popular person on Truth Social with more than 13 million followers, it’s fair to look at the sinking traffic to the site as a gauge for his diminshed popularity and erratic performance as president,” said Howard Polskin, President, TheRighting. “Additionally, audiences may also be turned off by his reliance on AI to create increasingly dark and unhinged Truth Social posts depicting scenes of violence or unflattering images of his perceived enemies.. Simply put, his Truth Social act doesn’t appear to be working as effectively anymore.”
Two of the four mainstream news websites TheRighting now follows on a monthly basis suffered audience declines: The Washington Post (-16%) and CNN (-25%). However, the NY Times (+3%) and The Atlantic (+15%) posted increased YOY visits. (Note: this report marks the first time that TheRighting is tracking traffic to The Atlantic.)
For the second month in a row, the Washington Times and the Bari Weiss-founded Free Press increased their YOY audience.
YOY Winners and Losers Among Top 20 Right-Wing News Websites, August 2026
(by percentage increase/decrease of visits from year ago)
Winners
–Washington Times (+21%)
–The Free Press (+18%)
–The American Conservative (+17%)
Losers
–The Federalist (-50%)
–The Blaze (-46%)
–Daily Caller (-42%)
