• by Sara Guaglione , July 20, 2016

The Atlantic will print an additional 25,000 copies of its July/August issue in order to “meet newsstand demand,” the first time in the nearly 160-year-old magazine’s modern history to order a second print run, the company announced today.

The cover story, “How American Politics Went Insane,” is likely the reason for the issue’s success.

According to a Politico report, the issue is projected to sell between 70,000 and 80,000 copies, up from 53,100 for its counterpart in 2015.

The issue is poised to become the magazine’s best-selling issue since 2008.

An Atlantic spokesperson told Publishers Daily that the magazine's top-performing covers of the year have been focused on politics, thanks in part, to the magazine's “renewed emphasis on politics in this fascinating year,” stated Bob Cohn, The Atlantic’s president.

The April issue of The Atlantic, “The Obama Doctrine” by Jeffrey Goldberg, sold almost 30% more copies year over year. June's “The Mind of Donald Trump” issue saw increased newsstand sales of 60% year over year.

Since January, The Atlantic expanded its “Politics & Policy” coverage and tripled the size of its political reporting team.

“At a time of troubling newsstand performance for many magazines, it was kind of thrilling to order up a second printing for this issue,” Cohn stated.

According to figures from MagNet in June, newsstand sales of consumer magazines continued to decline in the beginning of 2016.

The number of magazines sold fell 10.1% from 98 million to 88.1 million in the last year, while newsstand sales in dollar volume fell from $509.8 million to $481.5 million, for a roughly 5.6% drop.