An AI-driven analysis of US news coverage over the past three months has revealed that in the wake of Joe Biden dropping out of the presidential race and Kamala Harris taking his place, Harris has seen a surge in positive headlines.

The study of 130,231 headlines from 550 news outlets over the past three months, conducted by Permutable AI, showed that there was a small spike in Trump’s "sentiment" rating following the assassination attempt at the Butler, Pennsylvania rally, but by the following week, that spike had been replaced by a surge in Harris’ sentiment rating.

"We all thought that the assassination attempt was going to strengthen his hold but that's we don't see that to be the case. It's kind of plateauing, whereas Kamala Harris her sentiment is actually increasing through time," Wilson Chan, chief executive of Permutable AI, told the Daily Mail. "And it's not only increasing. We saw an explosion in volumes for the past two or three weeks."

The company used its "sentiment analysis" algorithm to look at the two presidential candidates. The algorithm assigns a score between 0 and 100, with 100 being the most positive, for each headline associated with the candidates’ names.

The results showed that Harris has seen higher-scoring headlines in the last two of three months, with Trump temporarily taking the lead between the end of May and the end of June. 

One New York Times headline, which read, "Kamala Harris Rapidly Picks Up Democratic Support as 2024 Race Is Reborn," scored 97 points. Another headline from CBS News scored neutral, titled "Kamala Harris focusing on final contenders for her VP pick, sources say," which scored 50 points.

A headline from the Arizona Daily Sun, "Bad policies, not gender, will cost Kamala Harris the presidency," scored just four points.

While Trump has generally maintained a larger volume of headlines in the past three months, headlines pertaining to Harris jumped after she took Biden’s place in the race. And at the same time she took his place, the gap between Harris and Trump’s sentiment ratings grew.

"She maintains a comfortable lead in terms of sentiment," said Chan. "And the volumes will be here to stay. We expect there to be persistent volume because she is now the leader of the party."

Among individual outlets, Harris has received more favorable headlines from the New York Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, and Newsweek in July and August. Trump on the other hand received more favorable headlines from Business Insider and Fox News, while Trump and Harris scored around the same, about 48 points, with Huffington Post headlines.