Which liberal news websites had the highest US monthly unique visitors in 2024 and 2025?
Executive summary
No single authoritative, public list in the provided sources names “the liberal news websites with the highest US monthly unique visitors in 2024 and 2025” by a consistent metric. Available reporting and compilations point to mainstream outlets (The New York Times, CNN, Politico, HuffPost and others) as among the largest liberal-leaning sites, but the exact rankings and monthly-unique-visitor counts for 2024 and 2025 are not consistently reported in these sources [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. What the available data actually measures — and why that matters
Traffic tallies vary by vendor (Comscore, Similarweb, Statista and outlets’ internal counts) and by metric (monthly visits, sessions, unique visitors), so comparisons across lists are unreliable without the same source and definition; Statista cautions about source definitions and cites Press Gazette data for July 2024 monthly visits [1]. Press Gazette / Similarweb roundups, Comscore-based rankings like TheRighting, and proprietary reports (e.g., Newsweek citing Similarweb) use different methodologies, producing different leaderboards [2] [5] [3].
2. Which liberal-leaning outlets appear repeatedly near the top
Multiple secondary lists and surveys identify mainstream national outlets that are commonly classified as left-leaning by Americans — The New York Times, The Washington Post, HuffPost, NPR and The Atlantic are repeatedly described as liberal-leaning in public polling and journalistic roundups [6] [4]. Press Gazette’s “Biggest websites for news US” and Statista charts show large overall audiences for mainstream news brands in 2024, but those compilations are not presented in the sources as a neat “liberal-only top list” with month-by-month unique-visitor figures [2] [1].
3. Notable single-source figures in the record
Some single-outlet claims exist in the sources: Newsweek reported 46.4 million monthly visitors in 2024 in a Similarweb-based announcement about its growth, but that is Newsweek-specific and does not establish cross-outlet rank among liberal sites [3]. Press Gazette’s Similarweb-based reporting shows top overall news sites by visits in 2024–2025 but does not isolate a consistent “liberal news” subset in the provided excerpts [2].
4. Survey context: perception vs. raw traffic
Public perception of an outlet’s ideological slant is surveyed independently of traffic. YouGov reporting cited in the sources shows many major print outlets (Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post) are perceived as liberal by sizable shares of Americans — perception that can correlate with audience composition but is not a traffic ranking itself [6]. Pew’s 2025 survey mapped which outlets Democrats vs. Republicans regularly use and labeled The Atlantic, HuffPost, NPR and others as used more by liberals — again useful context but not direct unique-visitor counts [4].
5. Limitations and gaps in available reporting
The sources supplied do not include a single, comparable table showing the top liberal news websites by monthly unique U.S. visitors for both 2024 and 2025. Several compilations exist (Aelieve rankings, FeedSpot lists, Press Gazette / Similarweb summaries, TheRighting Comscore tallies), but these either mix ideological labels with other categories, rely on different measurement vendors, or offer dated snapshots — so we cannot conclusively cite “highest” liberal-site rankings for those two years from the materials at hand [7] [8] [2] [5].
6. How to get a definitive answer and why you should care
To produce a reliable, comparable ranking you need: (a) a single traffic vendor (Comscore or Similarweb) for both years; (b) the vendor’s definition (unique visitors vs visits); and (c) a consistent list of outlets labeled “liberal” (either by audience perception surveys like Pew/YouGov or an editorial classification). The provided sources point to candidate outlets (NYT, Washington Post, HuffPost, Politico, NPR) but do not supply the complete, vendor-consistent dataset required to assert the “highest” sites definitively [4] [6] [1].
7. Competing viewpoints and possible agendas in the sources
Traffic roundups by marketing sites (Aelieve, FeedSpot) emphasize rank lists that drive clicks and may mix internal estimates with third‑party tools; media trade outlets (Press Gazette, Statista) rely on Similarweb/Press Gazette data but may present snapshots; advocacy or partisan directories list liberal sites as recommendations rather than neutral traffic comparisons [7] [8] [2]. Each source’s commercial or editorial incentives should be considered when interpreting its rankings.
If you want, I can: (A) compile a candidate top-20 liberal roster from the outlets named across these sources; or (B) pull a single-vendor (Similarweb or Comscore) report for 2024–2025 and produce a consistent, cited ranking — but I will need those specific vendor reports or permission to fetch them. Available sources do not mention that unified dataset now [2] [1].