Despite concerns about AI Overviews, some nonprofit news outlets see a surge in search traffic

Election season is a busy time for any newsroom. In the second quarter of 2026, some nonprofit newsrooms saw their coverage of the primaries — especially voter guides — pay off in both interest and traffic.

In Nieman Lab’s quarterly ranking of nonprofit news outlets, four news outlets saw a bump in traffic thanks in part to their coverage of primary elections in May and June. We bring you four of these each quarter, looking at four different market segments: for-profit local news sites, local newspapers, nonprofit news outlets, and public media stations.

The 51st

Worker-owned news cooperative The 51st attributed its uptick in site visits (from 120,000 in May to 179,000 in June) to its coverage of the Washington, D.C. primary election. The primary included high-profile races and the launch of ranked-choice voting, which The 51st cofounder Maddie Poore speculates led to increased readership of its voter guide, candidate profiles, and other stories.

Poore said the voter guide got 50,000 pageviews, and overall election coverage helped pull in 6,000 new newsletter subscribers. The 51st doesn’t have a paywall, but asks readers to register with their email addresses. Most of the traffic came from organic search.

“We found this heartening, in a time when many experts are writing eulogies for clickthrough from search engine results pages,” Poore said. “With our voter guides, profiles of candidates, and nuanced fact-checks, we’re providing information here that can’t be broken down at Google’s summary length. People still have to click through! Doing this successfully requires being super clear on your community’s information needs.”

CalMatters

In May, CalMatters topped our growth chart, receiving an estimated 3.8 million site visits. That’s up from 1.9 million in April. Editor-in-chief Kristen Go said the California gubernatorial primary drove readers to CalMatters’ voter guide, which often has record-breaking audience reach. But the impact of the voter guide extended beyond pageviews.

“In May we saw a surge in new members [and] a record-low monthly churn, and the coverage drove donations,” Go said.

CalMatters also created video guides for the primary. Journalists interviewed gubernatorial candidates for vertical videos, which led to organic shares on TikTok and Instagram.

The Colorado Sun

Coverage of primary elections in Colorado increased The Colorado Sun’s site visits to an estimated 1.9 million in June, up from 1.2 million in May.

Stephanie Rivera, the Sun’s director of audience and engagement, said the biggest traffic drivers were a voter guide published in early June, and election night coverage on June 30. The Sun published more than 30 election stories that got a combined 800,000 pageviews. Much of the traffic came from Google Search. For example, The Sun’s guide to secretary of state candidates got 51,000 pageviews.

“While this wasn’t considered a competitive race, nor did it have controversy surrounding it, I think it reminds us that voters want to make informed decisions beyond key races and will seek out balanced reporting to help them cast their ballots,” Rivera said.

NonDoc Media

NonDoc Media, a nonprofit news site covering Oklahoma, published 70 stories in the lead-up to the state’s primary elections in June. It got an estimated 81,000 site visits in May and 133,000 in June.

Editor-in-chief Tres Savage said NonDoc, an outlet with 10 full-time employees, increased its publishing pace leading up to the election to “ensure readers had timely, comprehensive information about candidates, races and ballot issues.” NonDoc also hosted five public political debates, “which contributed to generating audience interest and expanded our election coverage.”

Other gains

Mississippi Free Press

Mississippi Free Press saw its site visits increase by 302% between May and June — from 87,000 site visits in May to 353,000 in June.

June’s most-read story was about a police officer killing one-year-old Kohen Wiley on June 16. Mississippi Free Press (MFP) has since published 12 stories about Wiley’s death and compiled them on a separate landing page.

About 46% of traffic came from social, and much of that was from Reddit. Since then, MFP has posted its stories to Reddit more frequently. Audience manager Chris Ellis also attributed the growth and attention to MFP’s journalistic rigor.

“We did not hide the officer’s action behind passive or indirect language, nor did we make the vehicle the central focus of the story about a child’s death,” Ellis said. “We continued following the story, distinguished verified facts from official claims and gave the family the space to speak for themselves. Readers responded to that combination of clarity and humanity, sharing the coverage far beyond Mississippi.”

VTDigger

VTDigger, a statewide outlet covering Vermont, received 1.1 million visits in April, up from 863,000 in March. Audience and product director Taylor Haynes attributed the growth to a surge of traffic from Google Discover.

“Several of our top-performing stories received the majority of their traffic from Discover, which was a noticeable shift from what we had seen earlier in the year,” Haynes said.

VTDigger’s top story in April was a profile about a Vermont teenager who became the youngest runner from the state to compete in the Boston Marathon. About 87% of the story’s total traffic (380,000 pageviews) came from Google Discover, according to Haynes. Three other major stories — about Medicaid, housing, and immigration — received 65% or more of their total traffic from Google Discover.

“A common thread was that they had relevance beyond Vermont and featured strong human-interest angles,” Haynes said. “While VTDigger is a state news organization, these stories appeared to resonate with broader audiences and aligned with the types of timely, widely appealing content that often performs well in Discover.”

Haynes said VTDigger started adding meta descriptions to its stories in April, and while it’s too soon to tell if that caused the Google Discover traffic bump, it’s something the team is monitoring.

Block Club Chicago

Much of what drove readers and traffic to Block Club Chicago in April was the outlet’s nuanced coverage of crime stories.

One story covered the release of a video related to the death of a Chicago police officer and the actions of her partner the night he allegedly shot her by accident. Another reported on the shooting of two police officers in a neighborhood hospital.

“I would say this was a more crime-heavy month than we’ve seen in awhile, in terms of the types of stories that performed well,” cofounder and executive editor Jen Sabella said. “Block Club works to cover crime when we’re able to include context beyond a police narrative. All of the stories that performed well here fit that bill, which I think shows that people want news on crime impacting their communities, but with context and community voices included.”

As a result, Block Club Chicago saw those stories boom on Google Discover and enjoyed more engagement on Instagram and more podcast listeners.

The Intercept

The Intercept saw a 30% increase in traffic from March to April, CEO Annie Chabel said, totaling 2.1 million visits. The month’s top three stories were all scoops: FBI director Kash Patel’s previously undisclosed alcohol-related arrests, the Pentagon’s undercounting of the number of U.S. troops killed or wounded in Iran, and the story of an Alabama grandmother who was arrested for wearing a penis costume to a No Kings protest. After The Intercept published the story about her case, she was acquitted.

Chabel said The Intercept’s increase in visits came from a variety of sources, and “no single platform accounted for more than 9% of pageviews.”

“As Big Tech platforms increasingly serve users with AI slop instead of real news, readers are flocking to The Intercept’s independent investigative journalism by word of mouth,” Chabel said.

The Salt Lake Tribune

The Salt Lake Tribune attracted 3.6 million visits in April, up from 3.2 million in March. It saw another bump in May, to 4.3 million visits.

In May, the Tribune published 50 stories about Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary’s proposal to build data centers in Box Elder County, Utah. Those stories got 400,000 pageviews combined, according to chief of content Danyelle White. Google Search and Discover accounted for more than half of referral traffic to those stories.

Some of that can be attributed to Google’s algorithm changes, White said, along with new editorial strategies.

“One of our tactics this year was to reduce the number of stories that failed to reach 1,000 readers,” White said. “So far, we’ve reduced those stories by 10%, freeing up more staff time to focus on stories that resonate with audiences.”