Reporting of borderlands topics within a national election offers a unique venue for understanding the role of news media in both configuring the salience of specific issues and impacting public opinion at local, regional, and national levels. Deploying a content analysis drawing from 11 publications across North America, including national and metropolitan news dailies, this study ultimately analyzes how legacy news outlets in the United States, Canada, and Mexico covered the U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico borders during the 2024 U.S. presidential election. By focusing on news coverage along each border as well as the national level, this study analyzes media agenda-setting theory and journalistic practice that emphasizes borderland issues alongside the horse-race approach to election coverage.
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