The midterms are a stress test for American media

In today’s CEO Daily: How the media and money are coloring the election.

The big leadership story: Better.com’s founder vs. the investor who replaced him The markets: Up around the globe.

Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune .

Good morning.

I’ve been thinking about Steve Ballmer, Elon Musk and the prospects for American voters to get the facts they need to make informed choices in the upcoming midterm elections.

In-person voting began on Friday, the same day that President Donald Trump announced that he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. (Journalists from those media outlets were denied entry and had their credentials deactivated on Saturday.) Many things will influence how Americans vote at the polls on Nov.

3, but the media and money will certainly color their perceptions.

Let’s start with the media.

The quality and accuracy of information that voters receive about government leadership matters.

For example, they should know that Trump has traded more stocks since returning to office than every member of Congress combined—making 28,700 trades in 17 months, or about 80 trades every market day.

That analysis came from Bloomberg, not the White House.

As I’ve written about previously , Trump made more money last year as president than he ever did as a CEO.

And there are always scandals on both sides of the aisle.

It was a Politico report on sexual assault allegations that forced Democrat Graham Platner to withdraw from the U.S.