When polling shows Hillary Clinton with a 12-point lead over Donald Trump, Fox News hosts whine about the polls and suggest they are rigged against him.
Yesterday, an ABC News/Washington Post poll came out with results that are terrible for Trump:
Hillary Clinton surged to a broad advantage against Donald Trump in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, capitalizing on Trump’s recent campaign missteps. Two-thirds of Americans see him as biased against groups such as women, minorities or Muslims, and a new high, 64 percent, call Trump unqualified to serve as president.
These and other doubts about Trump have produced a sharp 14-point swing in preferences among registered voters, from +2 points for Trump in mid-May, after he clinched the GOP nomination, to +12 points for Clinton now, 51-39 percent. That snaps the race essentially back to where it was in March.
Not only that, President Obama’s popularity has soared. In my most recent post for Liberal America, I explained why that is more great news for Clinton.
So what’s a “fair and balanced” news network devoted to cheerleading for Donald Trump to do? Why, echo his “dirty poll” whine, of course.
On Fox & Friends this morning, Special Report anchor Bret Baier helped the three cohosts help Trump. From Media Matters (with my emphases):
STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): Bret, one thing. If we can put up that ABC/Washington Post poll once again, Donald Trump is trailing Hillary Clinton by 12. But what they don’t tell you, and you have to go into the methodology of the poll, they actually talked to 12 percent more Democrats than Republicans. According to the Gallup poll, there are 3 percent more Democrats in the country than Republicans, so it looks like they’ve got a favorite in it.
BRET BAIER: You know, polling is different in how you break it down. I mean, our Fox polls sometimes, it looks like self-identified there were more Democrats than Republicans.
DOOCY: But 12 points?
BAIER: Right, no. And that’s high.
DOOCY: That’s big.
BAIER: And that is worth pointing out. He was leading in that poll, the last national poll. So the breakdown inside polls, that’s important to point out.
[...]
AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): Yeah, I mean, those numbers were pretty shocking to me because you think if you’re going to poll someone, you know the Democrats are going to choose Hillary. You know the Republicans are going to choose Trump. So I want to know what the independents think. And if you look at the numbers, that one poll, 36 percent were Democrats. 24 percent were Republicans, and 33 were independents. The majority were Democrats.
BRIAN KILIMEADE (CO-HOST): So far Donald Trump leads in most independent polls.
Notice how “we report, you decide” Fox didn't bother to actually investigate why there might have been so many more Democrats polled than Republicans – other than to immediately suggest that it was due to “liberal media” bias?
Later, on America’s Newsroom, Fox contributor (i.e. not a host or anchor), Brit Hume debunked the baloney three hosts were putting forth that was tacitly agreed to by the supposedly objective Baier. From Media Matters (with their emphases):
BRIT HUME: Well, I think it’s worth noting the wide disparity between the results that The Wall Street Journal got from the ones that ABC News and The Washington Post got, and what I would suggest, Martha, is that it’s better to look at the polling average which gives Hillary Clinton about a six or seven point lead, which I think is probably about right. Perhaps even more important, however, is that not a single poll that I’ve seen going back more than a month, has shown Donald Trump ahead. There were a couple back in May, about mid-May, in which he was ahead by a couple of points, but nothing since then, which shows that he has not been gaining ground over the past month, or six weeks and she has at least to some extent. And I think that reflects, you know, you see the awareness of that in the Trump campaign reflected in the personnel changes, the set-piece speeches and so on in which I think he’s trying to change the trajectory, which seems to need changing.
[…]
Trump and his supporters tend to believe all the polls that show him ahead. They certainly liked them all during the primary season when he was leading, and he couldn’t stop talking about ‘em. Now the polls are adverse to him, and that one in particular he doesn’t like. And I’m sure his supporters, the ones I hear from anyway say that the poll is rigged, and all the rest of it. I don’t think your viewers should pay too much attention to that. Look at the polling averages. Look at all the polls put together, and see what you get. And I think the picture’s pretty clear. He’s trailing, but not insurmountably.
It will be interesting to see what happens in prime time. Meanwhile, watch the spin below.
So the poll FOX diaper dumps over had a slight uptick in Democrats and a slight drop in Republicans. If they went to the source they’d see this shift accounts for less than half of Clinton’s gains.
Those polled like all Republican presidents going back to Reagan more than Democrats. They are self-identified regarding party. Think many Blue Dog Democrats.
When asked which presidents set the nation in the right direction:
- Obama 56%
- Dubya – 79% (‘08), 57% (’04)
- Clinton – 46%
- Daddy Bush – 75%
- Reagan – 57%
How hard is it for FOX to research any of this? Nevermind, FOX obviously researched the story; it’s the reporting they found troubling! 👍