Jon Stewart will win the US election

Or thereabouts. So powerful are The Daily Show and its host, comedian Jon Stewart, that they could help swing a win in the US presidential elections.

So says the Guardian. And they pay attention and write with big words, so they should definitely know. They may not always spell the words correctly, what with being too busy being clevers and all that.

Anyway, for those without satellite channel More4, The Daily Show is a less leftfield The Day Today but with real news. So dressed like a newscaster and talking like a newscaster, Stewart delivers super sharp puns, jokes and truisms that can actually tell the average news-shy American quite a lot about the state of the nation.

It’s an antidote to the mainstream horrors of Fox News or – just as damaging – bland, kneejerk news that overstretched, under-resourced newsrooms are forced to turn out in place of any real investigations and tough questioning.

Being comedy current affairs, rather than just current affairs, it reaches an audience outside of the dedicated news programmes and is one of the key targets the candidates want to be seen on.