Seen Read Heard 2021 - Morning Consult

Seen, Read, Heard

INSURRECTION. INAUGURATION. INFECTION. INFLATION. HERE’S THE NEWS THAT BROKE THROUGH IN 2021.

Over the course of a year that brought Americans the fallout from an insurrection, the start of Joe Biden’s presidency, a stubborn pandemic and a fair amount of economic anxiety, Morning Consult asked roughly 100,000 registered voters how much they’d seen, read or heard about more than 350 current events. But not all news resonated the same — here’s the share of voters who said they heard “a lot” about 131 of the events we thought were most noteworthy, and how the news penetrated along party lines, age and race.

By Eli Yokley and Cameron Easley

Analysis

Filter your selection by one or more of the items below to view.

% Democrats

% All Voters

% Republicans

January

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Recording reveals Donald Trump pressured Georgia's secretary of state to overturn Joe Biden's victory

Trump tells Georgia to 'find' votes

Trump supporters attack the U.S. Capitol to stop Congress from counting Biden's Electoral College win

Insurrection Day

Georgia Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win runoff contests to secure the party's Senate majority

Democrats win the Senate

Congress certifies Biden's Electoral College victory

Congress certifies Biden's win

Brian Sicknick, Capitol Police officer, dies following the Jan. 6 attack

Capitol cop dies

House impeaches Trump on charges that he incited the Jan. 6 riot

Trump impeachment 2.0

Trump pardons/commutes sentences of 140-plus people, including Steve Bannon

Steve Bannon pardoned

Biden and Kamala Harris sworn in as president and vice president

Biden inaugurated

Biden signs order ending Trump's ban on immigration and travel from several predominantly Muslim countries

Biden ends Trump's travel ban

Baseball legend Hank Aaron dies at age 86

Hank Aaron dies

General Motors says it will only sell zero-emission vehicles by 2035

GM’s emissions pledge

February

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Jeff Bezos announces plans to step down as CEO of Amazon

Bezos out at Amazon

House votes to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from two panels

MTG loses committee spots

Trump faces second Senate impeachment trial, in which he is ultimately acquitted

Trump trial 2.0

Letter reveals criminal, state-level probe into Trump's attempts to overturn the election

Trump faces Georgia probe

Texas faces power blackouts caused by winter storms

Texas blackouts

Reports say staff for Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) concealed the number of COVID-related deaths in the state's nursing homes

New York nursing home scandal

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) flies to Cancun as rolling power outages hit his state

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh dies at age 70

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle resign from all royal duties

Sussexit becomes official

U.S. death toll from COVID-19 tops 500,000

U.S. COVID deaths surpass 500K

March

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Governors in Texas and Mississippi end mask mandates and allow all businesses to reopen at full capacity

GOP governors lift COVID restrictions

Dr. Seuss Enterprises pulls six of its books from publication due to their use of racist imagery

Dr. Seuss books pulled

Residents of Jackson, Miss., go weeks without water following a winter storm

Mississippi water crisis

Oprah Winfrey interviews Meghan Markle and Prince Harry

Oprah interviews Meghan and Harry

Major, the Bidens' dog, bites someone at the White House

Biden signs $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package into law

American Rescue Plan

Biden directs states to make COVID-19 vaccines available to all U.S. adults by May 1

Nationwide vaccine push

Number of child migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border increases

Young migrants at the border

Gas prices increase in the United States

Rising gas prices

Trump recommends that Americans get the COVID-19 vaccine

Trump’s vaccine nudge

Shooting spree at three Atlanta-area spas leaves 8 people dead, including 6 women of Asian descent

Atlanta spa shootings

Ten people killed in a shooting at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo.

Boulder shooting

Container ship Ever Given runs aground in the Suez Canal

Suez Canal blocked

Republicans in Georgia enact restrictive voting and elections law

Georgia voting restrictions

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) confirms Justice Department sex-trafficking probe

Matt Gaetz investigated

Biden introduces his $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan

‘American Jobs Plan' introduced

April

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Government reports that the U.S. economy added 916,000 jobs in March

March jobs report

U.S. reports more than 170,000 people were caught trying to enter the U.S. from Mexico in March

Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, dies at age 99

Prince Philip dies

Government recommends a pause in the use of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine following cases of rare and severe type of blood clot

Health agencies propose J&J pause

Biden orders an end to the war in Afghanistan and the withdrawal of all troops by Sept. 11

Afghanistan withdrawal announced

Jury finds former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murder and manslaughter for the death of George Floyd

Chauvin found guilty

Senate passes bill to combat anti-Asian hate crimes

Biden's delivers first speech to a joint session of Congress

Biden's congressional address

Trump says Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) should be replaced as Republican leader

Trump calls for McConnell's ouster

May

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Bill and Melinda Gates announce divorce after 27-year marriage

Colonial Pipeline shuts down, leading to a gasoline shortage on the East Coast

Colonial Pipeline shutdown

Violence escalates between Israelis and Palestinians

Middle East tensions

House Republicans vote to remove Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from her role as conference chairwoman

Cheney axed from leadership

Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres announces plans to end her talk show in 2022

Ellen out at “Ellen”

CDC updates COVID-19 guidance to say fully vaccinated people do not need to wear a mask in most cases

CDC eases masking rules

Biden orders U.S. intelligence agencies to investigate the pandemic’s origins

COVID-19 origins probe

Senate Republicans block bipartisan bill to form an independent commission to probe the Jan. 6 Capitol attack

GOP blocks Jan. 6 commission

June

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Report says Trump told allies he believes he will be reinstated as president by August

Trump’s reinstatement hoax

Facebook announces plans to suspend Trump from its platform until at least 2023

Trump's Facebook suspension extended

Harris visits Guatemala and Mexico

VP visits Central America

Canadian energy company says it will abandon Keystone XL oil pipeline project

Keystone pipeline canceled

Republicans push talk of critical race theory in public schools

Critical race theory

Biden signs a bill into law making Juneteenth a federal holiday

Supreme Court dismisses a Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn the Affordable Care Act

Obamacare upheld, again

Supreme Court rules that the NCAA may not place limits on education-related benefits for student-athletes

Supreme Court deals blow to NCAA

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announces a select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack

Select Jan. 6 panel

Condominium building collapses in Surfside, Fla., killing dozens of people

Surfside collapse

Harris visits the U.S.-Mexico border

VP visits border

Western parts of the U.S. experience extremely high temperatures

Western heat wave

July

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Runner Sha'Carri Richardson blocked from competing in the Tokyo Olympics after a positive THC test

Sha'Carri Richardson suspended

Gunmen assassinate Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in Port-au-Prince

Haitian president killed

Global death toll from COVID-19 surpasses 4 million

COVID's global toll

Biden administration begins to distribute its expanded child tax credit payments

Child tax credit

GM forced to halt most production of full-size pickup trucks due to global semiconductor chip shortage

U.S. and Germany reach agreement to allow completion of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline with Russia

Nord Stream 2 deal

Cleveland's MLB team announces name change from the Indians to the Guardians

Cleveland’s rebrand

Olympic Summer Games begin in Tokyo

CDC recommends that vaccinated Americans wear masks indoors in places of high COVID-19 risk

CDC brings back masks

COVID-19 cases increase in the U.S. due to the delta variant

August

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Biden issues a 60-day ban on evictions in counties with high COVID-19 rates

Government reports that the U.S. economy added 943,000 jobs in July, the largest monthly total since August 2020

July jobs report

Dixie Fire becomes the second largest wildfire in California's history

U.N. panel finds climate change is worsening and there is limited time to avoid future crisis-level impacts

Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) announces resignation after a state attorney general probe found he sexually harassed 11 women

Senate passes $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill

Infrastructure bill heads to House

Taliban fighters gain control of two-thirds of Afghanistan

Taliban expands control of Afghanistan

In July, U.S. detained the highest monthly number of migrants at the southern border for the past two decades

Record migration

Thousands of Americans and Afghan allies evacuated from the Kabul airport

Biden administration says many fully vaccinated adults will need a COVID-19 booster shot

Biden pushes boosters

FDA gives full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine

Full approval for Pfizer vaccine

Explosions near the Kabul airport in Afghanistan result in multiple U.S. military and Afghan civilian casualties

Supreme Court blocks the Biden administration’s eviction moratorium

Eviction moratorium blocked

Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd reveals himself as the officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt during the Jan. 6 attack

Babbitt’s killer revealed

Hurricane Ida makes landfall in Louisiana before causing deadly flooding in New York and New Jersey

Last U.S. soldiers leave Afghanistan, ending America's longest war

War in Afghanistan ends

September

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Supreme Court keeps in place a Texas law effectively banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy

Texas abortion ban takes effect

Biden presents plan to increase COVID-19 vaccinations and testing nationwide

Biden targets delta variant

Rapper Nicki Minaj raises concerns online about COVID-19 vaccines

Minaj questions COVID-19 vaccines

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) beats recall election to remove him from office

Newsom defeats recall

U.S. Olympic gymnasts tell lawmakers about the FBI's mishandling of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse case

Gymnasts' Nassar testimony

U.S. announces agreement with the United Kingdom and Australia to build nuclear-powered subs

Video shows U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback confronting Haitian migrants at the southern border

Border Patrol clashes with Haitians

Police search for Brian Laundrie after officials found the body of his fiancée, Gabby Petito, in Wyoming

Petito confirmed dead

A review by the contractor Cyber Ninjas for the Arizona Senate reaffirms Biden's victory over Trump in Maricopa County, Ariz.

Cyber Ninjas' review

Pelosi delays vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill due to a lack of support from House progressives

Democratic infighting

October

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Large oil spill off the coast of California results from a damaged pipeline to an offshore platform

California oil spill

Facebook and its platforms, including Instagram and WhatsApp, go offline for hours

Facebook outage

Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen tells Congress about the company's impacts on teenagers and political division

Facebook whistleblower

Senate votes to raise the debt limit by $480 billion

Debt limit temporarily raised

Oil and gasoline prices hit their highest point since 2014

Record fuel costs

Government reports the U.S. economy added 194,000 jobs in September 2021, below expectations

September jobs report

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell dies from COVID-19 complications

Colin Powell dies

Authorities find Laundrie's remains in a Florida nature reserve

Facebook announces it will change its name to Meta

Facebook rebrand

International climate change conference is held in Glasgow, Scotland

November

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Republican Glenn Youngkin elected Virginia governor

Virginia governor's race

Gov. Phil Murphy (D-N.J.) narrowly wins re-election

New Jersey governor's race

Government reports that the U.S. economy added 531,000 jobs in October, exceeding expectations

October jobs report

Deadly crowd surge at musician Travis Scott's Astroworld music festival

Travis Scott human crush

Consumer prices rise 6.2% year over year, marking a 30-year high in inflation

30-year inflation high

Biden signs the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill into law

Biden signs infrastructure bill

House censures, removes Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) from committees after violent video targeting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)

House passes Biden's climate and social spending package

House passes 'Build Back Better'

The FDA authorizes booster shots from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech for all vaccinated U.S. adults

FDA authorizes COVID-19 boosters

Jury finds Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty after shooting and killing two men, injuring another during Kenosha protest

Rittenhouse verdict

Driver kills six and injures dozens more at a Christmas parade in Wisconsin

Waukesha parade attack

Jury finds three men guilty of murdering Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia

Verdict in Arbery case

Scientists identify the coronavirus omicron variant in South Africa and several other countries

Omicron variant discovered

U.S. and others suspend travel from some countries in southern Africa due to omicron

Omicron travel ban

Jack Dorsey resigns as chief executive of Twitter

Dorsey leaves Twitter

Jussie Smollett faces jury on charges of faking a hate crime in 2019

Shooting at a high school in Oxford, Mich., kills four students and injures several others

Oxford shooting

December

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SCOTUS hears arguments over a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy

Mississippi abortion case

Several states identify omicron coronavirus cases

Omicron hits U.S.