Iran after Raisi's death: the helicopter crash and Pezeshkian's election
Overview · reviewed October 28, 2026
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, a hard-line protégé of the supreme leader, was killed in a helicopter crash in May 2024 along with seven others.[1][2]In the election to replace him, the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian beat the ultraconservative Saeed Jalili in a July runoff.[3]
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In the election to replace him, the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian beat the ultraconservative Saeed Jalili in a July runoff.[3]
Coverage over time
Share of tracked outlets · monthly average of weekly shares (UTC)
24%0%
May 202420252026this month
LeftCenterRight
Each bar is the share of the outlets on our Left / Center / Right rating scale that we tracked publishing that week which carried reporting on this story, split by the outlets' ratings. Over more than two years each bar is a month: the average of that month's weekly shares, so the shape stays readable. The weekly table below keeps every week. We track more outlets now than in the archive, so a share keeps earlier and later weeks comparable. An outlet counts once a week however much it published, and outlets in one ownership or syndication group count as one on each side they appear on. A rating describes the outlet, not the report. A gap means no such reports were collected that week, not that nothing was reported anywhere. Weeks run Monday to Sunday in UTC, so a report published on a Sunday evening in US Eastern time counts in the next week. 6 more outlets off the scale (not rated, or outside the left-right graphs) also reported; they are not in this chart. See them.
Weekly counts, outlets and reports (5 weeks with coverage)
Outlets on the rating scale that carried this story each week, of the outlets tracked that week, newest first
Week of (UTC)
Left
Center
Right
Of tracked
Share
Receipts
Jul 1, 2024
13
17
7
37 of 213
17%
Jun 24, 2024
8
9
2
19 of 250
8%
May 27, 2024
3
5
4
12 of 247
5%
May 20, 2024
25
40
24
89 of 226
39%
May 13, 2024
15
27
15
57 of 216
26%
Latest coverage
The newest reporting in this story's record.
Jul 5, 2024 · first reported · Headline from WFMZ Allentown
State media first reported a "hard landing" of Raisi's helicopter on May 19, 2024,[4] and authorities later confirmed his death and investigated what caused the crash.[1][5] Raisi had helped oversee the mass executions of thousands in 1988 and led Iran as it enriched uranium close to weapons-grade levels.[1] Iran opened registration for a June 28 election,[2] in which Pezeshkian and Jalili led the first round,[6] and Pezeshkian won the runoff with more than 16 million votes to Jalili's 13 million.[3]
