Season 51 of NBC’s Saturday Night Live recently came to an end, and it was considerably more liberal than Season 50. A new NewsBusters study has found that 91 percent of the season’s Weekend Update jokes were directed at conservatives, while 81 percent of its cold open political characters were conservatives or Republicans. For this study, NewsBusters analysts examined all 20 shows of the season from October 4, 2025, through May 16, 2026.   Weekend Update MRC analysts found that Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che combined to tell 217 out of 238 jokes (91 percent) about conservatives during Season 52. They also told 18 about liberals and three non-partisan jokes. This included 32 separate conservative, 13 liberal, and three non-partisan targets.  Jost and Che’s top ten targets included only one liberal. The list featured Donald Trump (108), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (15), Kristi Noem (12), Tucker Carlson (11), George Santos (10), Melania Trump (7), JD Vance (7), Andrew Cuomo (5), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (5), and Kash Patel (5). By joking about Cuomo, SNL helped boost the even further-left Zohran Mamdani in New York City's mayoral election. Additionally, in the middle of every Weekend Update, another cast member joins Jost and Che to play an absurd character, with Jost or Che acting as the straight man in the scenario. Occasionally, these are political, such as Jeremy Culhane appearing as Tucker Carlson on two occasions that made it seem as if Carlson is still best known for being a conservative culture warrior, and not someone who is constantly smearing Israel, bashing Trump, and making excuses for America’s enemies. Here are some samples of Jost and Che’s most anti-conservative jokes from the past season. Tom Homan called on local leaders in Minneapolis to work with ICE agents to tone down the dangerous rhetoric, because all that rhetoric just distracts agents from their main aim: anyone filming. – Che Minnesota Governor Tim Walz compared the Trump administration's immigration crackdown to the Nazi occupation described The Diary of Anne Frank, but remember this administration has always ignored the stories told by young girls. – Jost  A federal judge on Friday ordered ICE agents in Minnesota not to retaliate against peaceful protesters. But if ICE agents listened to judges, then their ex-wives would be getting those checks for child support.  – Jost  Argentine President Javier Milei, seen asking if he makes you horny baby, met with President Trump at the White House this week, where Trump announced he's sending $40 billion to Argentina, because if history is any guide, Trump officials will end up fleeing to Argentina. – Jost Islamophobia, Che. How dare you. How dare you, Che. I'm not Islamophobic. Okay? I'm just scared of all Muslim people. – Sarah Sherman playing a paranoid and delusional Mamdani critic Kamala Harris has released a new book that explains how she lost the 2024 Election. It’s called I’m a Black Lady. – Che The point is, Dobby came here to say that women have vaginas and women's bathrooms are for women only and girls and ghosts of girls…But house elves aren’t the victims, Master Rowling is. She gets so much hate mail. Just this morning, she received this T-shirt that says “They. K. Rowling,” but now it’s Dobby’s nicest shirt. – Bowen Yang playing Dobby the house elf from Harry Potter and mocking J.K. Rowling’s criticisms of Emma Watson What the hell are you talking about? Only thing that makes any sense in that entire analogy is that we can all understand JD Vance's wife having the urge to jump. – Jost Yesterday, Kamala Harris said she was thinking about running for president again, and I like her chances as long as she finally grows that penis. – Che There's growing confusion whether Israel being allowed to continue bombing Lebanon was part of the ceasefire with Iran. Ultimately that decision comes down to the man controlling our military: Benjamin Netanyahu. – Che Legal experts are saying that this week's Supreme Court ruling has taken a wrecking ball to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. If you ask black people, it felt more like a firehose. Too real. – Che According to a senior official, President Trump keeps a letter in the resolute desk addressed to Vice President JD Vance in the event he dies or is assassinated. The letter reads simply, “I wish it had been you.” – Jost President Trump has rejected Iran's latest demands to end the war, including recognition of Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and U.S. war reparations. You want reparations from America? Get in line, honey. – Che MRC President David Bozell said in a statement, “Michael Jordan famously said, ‘Republicans buy sneakers, too.’ Entertainment companies once understood that alienating half the country was probably not a great business model. Nobody is asking SNL to become conservative, but when every political punchline is nothing more than all Trump Derangement Syndrome all the time, SNL risks turning itself into a caricature of their own political obsessions.” NewsBusters started counting Jost and Che’s jokes at the end of Season 51. Their two year total now stands at 420 jokes about conservatives, 64 about liberals, and four non-partisan jokes. That is a two-year average of 86 percent for jokes directed against conservatives. Cold Opens MRC analysts also looked at the cold open skits at the beginning of every episode and found that conservative or Republican characters appeared 54 times, or 83 percent of the time. By contrast, liberal characters appeared only 10 times. Finally, CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper made an appearance as the only non-partisan character. In addition to Cooper, this included 23 unique conservative and 9 unique liberal characters. The last liberal character to show up was on season’s eighth episode on December 13. Only one liberal character appeared multiple times. Characters that did appear multiple times included James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump (13), Colin Jost’s Pete Hegseth (10), Ashley Padilla’s Kristi Noem (5), Padilla’s Karoline Leavitt (4), Jeremy Culhane’s JD Vance (3), Aziz Ansari’s Kash Patel (3), Chloe Fineman’s Kaitlan Collins (2), and Padilla/Amy Poehler’s Pam Bondi (2). The Kaitlan Collins character was not there to be a satirization of Collins or CNN but rather because the Republican characters needed a generic reporter to interact with. Additionally, three Democratic senators—Sheldon Whitehouse, Amy Klobuchar, and Dick Durbin—were portrayed in a way that made them look normal compared to former Attorney General Pam Bondi Here is a list of some of the most anti-conservative moments from Season 51’s cold opens. To answer your question, if I was just “playing Army,” would there be 80 dead fishermen— narco-terrorists in Venezuela right now? Next question. – Pete Hegseth (Colin Jost) And we’re doing war. War! What is it good for? Distracting from the Epstein files. –Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) Can I join ICE? Well, let me ask you this. Is your neck wider than your head? Are you currently wearing a Punisher T-shirt? Have you ever punched a hole in the wall because your son took a dance class? If the answer is yes, then grab a gun, any gun, and saddle up, big boy. – Kristi Noem (Ashley Padilla) TRUMP (JOHNSON): Yes, we're doing pirate now, arggh.        …         REPORTER (JEREMY CULHANE): Was that Santa?         [Video of Santa Claus being shot down]         TRUMP (JOHNSON): Not anymore. Can you believe I ended abortion? Hey, your body, my choice. – Brett Kavanaugh (Matt Damon) The two-year cold open tally now sits at 70 percent of characters being conservative or Republican with a total of 94 conservatives, 39 liberals, and one non-partisan with 28 Trump appearances on 41 total episodes. *** At the end of every SNL season, there are rumors about which cast members will not be back in the fall. Last year, rumors were everywhere that Jost and Che would not return, but they ultimately did. Already, those rumors are starting again, but any possible change in anchors will probably not lead to a change in partisan agenda.