Pope Leo XIV casts mail-in ballot in U.S. midterm election

🗞️ Story file #1170

Pope Leo XIV casts mail-in ballot in U.S. midterm election

Oct 30, 10 AM ET to Oct 31, 6 AM ET · 1 outlet not rated for lean

33outlets carried it
🫏12 · 8 · 12🐘left · center · right
20 hourson the front pages
33front pages at once, at its peak
9 minof TV captions
10radio newscasts

👣 How this story traveled: from the front pages that broke it, out through TV, radio and the shows, into what people retold and what fact-checkers examined, and on into the saga it is part of. Everything here is matched to the story by our tools, so a link can be wrong; the trackers' pages say how each is made.

Oct 30, 10 AM ETfirst on a front page: HuffPost
Oct 30, 10 AM ETfirst on the radio: NPR News Now
Oct 30, 10 AM ETfirst on TV: Fox News
Oct 30, 4 PM ETpeak: on 33 front pages

the front pages that ran it, hour by hour

Front pages carrying it at each hourly run, Oct 30, 10 AM to Oct 31, 6 AM ET (peak 33), by the outlets' lean: left · center · right · not rated

Who carried it and when: each outlet in the order it picked the story up, a bar for each headline from when we first saw it on the front page to when we last did, in the outlet's lean color (dashed: not rated); a dot marks a new headline, and a headline swapped for a new one between our hourly looks runs on to it. A gap means a look found the story gone from that front page. Beneath, its captions on TV, the radio newscasts that carried it (bigger: the lead) and when people were found retelling it. Hover for details.

📡 Wire copy

3 outlets ran the AP, Reuters headline nearly word for word

Los Angeles Times, PBS NewsHour, The National Desk

💬 Quoted

“historic”1

phrases its headlines put in quotation marks; the bar is how many outlets did

📌 Linked by aggregators

3 Drudge Report · Google News · Political Wire

aggregators linking to it from their front page (they don't count as outlets covering it)

✏️ 11 outlets ran more than one headline on it (reworded, or a follow-up)

AP (3 wordings): “Pope Leo XIV has become the first pope in history to vote in a US general election” → “Leo XIV has become the first pope in history to vote in a US general election - AP News”
Breitbart (2 wordings): “Report: Pope Leo XIV Requested a Mail-In Ballot for Illinois Midterms” → “Pope Votes By Mail in Midterms”
CNN (2 wordings): “Breaking News Pope Leo makes history by voting in US midterms” → “Pope Leo makes history by voting in US midterms”
Chicago Tribune (2 wordings): “Pope Leo mails in Chicago-area ballot, becoming the 1st pontiff in history to vote in a US election” → “Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV casts ‘historic’ local mail-in ballot, becoming first pontiff to vote in US election”
Mediaite (2 wordings): “Pope Leo Could Make History After Requesting Mail-In Ballot...” → “Pope Leo Makes History as He Completes Mail-In Ballot for Midterms”
New York Post (3 wordings): “Pope Leo XIV makes history as first pope to vote in US general election” → “Why Pope Leo is legally allowed to vote in US election — despite being leader of Vatican City”
Newsweek (2 wordings): “Breaking News Pope Leo Makes Vatican Voting History in US Midterm Election” → “Pope Leo Makes Vatican Voting History in US Midterm Election”
The Hill (2 wordings): “Leo XIV becomes first pope ever to vote in US general election” → “Leo becomes 1st pope to vote in US general election”
USA Today (2 wordings): “Pope Leo voting in the midterms, Vatican confirms” → “Pope Leo votes in the midterms, Vatican confirms”
Washington Examiner (2 wordings): “Pope Leo XIV requested a ballot to vote by mail in 2026 elections” → “Pope Leo XIV makes history as first pontiff to vote in US election”
Yahoo News (2 wordings): “Pope Leo casts historic U.S. vote after years of requesting both parties' primary ballots” → “Leo XIV becomes first pope to vote in US general election”