--- title: Donald Trump Leads Hillary Clinton in Late-Night Jokes description: Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton 3-1 in being the punchline for late-night TV jokes. canonical: https://time.com/4408080/donald-trump-late-night-jokes/ author: Julissa Higgins article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-15T15:27:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:45:56.874Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump is the Punchline of More Late-Night TV Jokes og:description: He leads Clinton 3-1. og:url: https://time.com/4408080/donald-trump-late-night-jokes/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb5283172f29b9867/69889970cd1bbaee0b701405/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-poll.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: US-VOTE-CLINTON-TRUMP og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump is the Punchline of More Late-Night TV Jokes twitter:description: He leads Clinton 3-1. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb5283172f29b9867/69889970cd1bbaee0b701405/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-poll.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump Leads Hillary Clinton 3-1 in Late-Night Jokes > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Julissa Higgins](https://time.com/author/julissa-higgins/) ## Julissa Higgins Jul 15, 2016 3:27 PM UTC  This combination of file photos shows Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (L) on June 15, 2016 and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on June 13, 2016. This combination of file photos shows Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (L) on June 15, 2016 and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on June 13, 2016. AFP—AFP/Getty Images by [Julissa Higgins](https://time.com/author/julissa-higgins/) ## Julissa Higgins Jul 15, 2016 3:27 PM UTC Donald Trump is leading Hillary Clinton 3-to-1 in late-night TV show jokes. A research study from the George Mason University Center for Media and Public Affairs conducted shows that there are three times more late-night TV jokes made about the presumptive Republican nominee than are made about Clinton. From the very beginning, Donald Trump was a controversial candidate, whose comments lent themselves to be used as material by late-night comedy shows. “The gloves came off on Trump long ago,” said Robert Lichter, the director of GMU’s Center for Media and Public Affairs. “Now you have \[Clinton\] with a scandal, and the jokes get nastier.” While there were reportedly 1,105 jokes made about Trump during the report’s study period, there were only 315 jokes made about Clinton. But after FBI Director James Comey’s [critical remarks](http://time.com/4393372/james-comey-fbi-hillary-clinton-email-speech-transcript/) about Clinton last week where he called her “extremely careless,” Clinton could catch up. “If she starts to fit the image of the political insider who thinks she can get away with things, there will be a lot of jokes around that,” added Lichter. \[[_Inside Sources_](http://www.insidesources.com/late-night-trump-jokes-outnumber-clinton-jokes/)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4408080/donald-trump-late-night-jokes/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4408080/donald-trump-late-night-jokes/"},"headline":"Donald Trump Leads Hillary Clinton 3-1 in Late-Night Jokes","datePublished":"2016-07-15T15:27:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:45:56.874Z","description":"The gloves came off on Trump long ago","url":"https://time.com/4408080/donald-trump-late-night-jokes/","keywords":["Donald Trump","Hillary Clinton","2016 Election","Television"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb5283172f29b9867/69889970cd1bbaee0b701405/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-poll.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Julissa Higgins","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/julissa-higgins/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb5283172f29b9867/69889970cd1bbaee0b701405/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-poll.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-VOTE-CLINTON-TRUMP","caption":"This combination of file photos shows Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (L) on June 15, 2016 and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on June 13, 2016.","creditText":"AFP—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4408080/donald-trump-late-night-jokes/","name":"Donald Trump Leads Hillary Clinton 3-1 in Late-Night Jokes"}}]}] ```