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As the 2024 election looms, most attention is centered on seven key battleground states. In Georgia, Erick Erickson has become a news/talk radio staple, as he’s heard in every market in the Peach State.
Based in Atlanta on 95.5 WSB, and distributed nationally by Compass Media Networks, The Erick Erickson Show has seen tremendous growth in the last two years. With that expanded reach, Erickson can share his political insight with a much wider audience at an important time.
“In a former life, in addition to being an election lawyer, I ran political campaigns around the country,” said Erick Erickson. “I’ve got an obligation, I think, to the entire audience to play it more straight than just partisan talking points. What’s actually happening? What the data actually says? I know how to read the polls and read the early voting turnout numbers, and not just give everybody the spin they can get from any talk show host. I want to give them the actual ‘Here’s what’s happening on the ground’ facts.”
Being in Georgia — one of the most hotly contested states in the race for the White House — gives Erickson a different perspective from many other hosts that might reside in deep red areas around the nation.
“Georgia is where people are interested in,” he said. “I get people on stations out west saying ‘We actually are interested in your state. Our state’s not a swing state. What’s happening?’ So I can cover the minutia of a presidential campaign in Georgia from a perspective of someone who’s run campaigns, been a lawyer for a presidential campaign, and also being somebody who the partisan shtick isn’t really something I do.
“Even though everybody knows I’m a conservative, the who, what, where, when, why and how fascinates me. And being able to cover that and let people come to their own conclusions has been fun. It’s also very liberating that I don’t feel like I’ve got to carry water for anybody … I have a little more liberty to not just tell the base what they want to hear,” Erickson continued. “I can say what my side’s doing is dumb or smart, and what the other side’s doing is smart or dumb and here’s how I think it’s going to play out as someone who knows how to run a campaign.”
That deep campaign knowledge gives Erickson the ability to analyze the strategies both Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris have employed in the final weeks of the race. But, for someone who believes they have a duty to be honest and truthful about the happenings in American politics rather than spin things to favor one side, it can often be an issue for The Erick Erickson Show host.
“I have a sense to some degree that probably the way I do radio, a lot of people who are used to putting traditional talk shows on stations maybe don’t quite understand it, because it’s not the red meat raw conservative politics that you can get from anyone else,” he shared. “I think I have an obligation to my audience to be as informed as possible, and oftentimes that means saying what everybody else is saying isn’t true. And I do think there’s probably a penalty for doing that by not being in the traditional box of conservative talk radio.
“But at the same time, everywhere I get put on, the audience has grown because I just don’t think we’re in traditional red meat politics territory anymore. There are a majority of Americans who don’t like either candidate running for president, even though they may be voting for one or the other. And I, quite frankly, am in that position, but also have an interest in I want one side to win. But that’s not going to mean I’m not gonna say Trump did something stupid if I think he did something stupid I’m gonna say so.”
“There’s a lot of anger,” continued Erickson. “And I know program directors around the country get angry people who call them when I tell people stuff they don’t want to hear, but the ratings keep going up … Longtime listeners know that I’m not just going to BS them. I’m going to tell them exactly what’s happening, and then I’ll tell them what I think. That, I think, is something I’ve tried very hard to do differently since 2016, let me tell you what is happening. And then I’ll tell you what I think about it once I’ve told you what’s happening. But let’s all get on the same page about the facts first.”
When asked if the content of his show changes as the election nears, Erick Erickson admitted that, at least for him, it absolutely does.
“We’re now within 14 days of the race. And so every single day, I come on and say, ‘Here’s how many days till the election, here’s what a campaign that is winning does 12 days from the election, here’s what a campaign that’s winning does 11 days from the election. Which side do you think is doing this?’ And the audience can make up their mind, but I mean, I have a very successful record of running campaigns,” Erickson said.
“I know what you do. And you get to seven days out, and there’s literally nothing a campaign can do except turn their base out and pointing those things out to the audience in a way that nobody else really can. And then, when the legal issues come up about the election, how do you challenge? What does it look like? What appears to be legitimate? I was one of five total election lawyers in the state of Georgia for almost a decade before people got interested in doing election law.”
Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
