Although they did their best not to highlight how badly Trump is doing in the polls, Fox’s Chris Stirewalt announced that Fox moved the ratings of three states in Biden’s favor and discounted Kayleigh McEnany’s claim that early voting in Florida indicates a victory for Trump.
First, Stirewalt announced the ratings changes, which he downplayed as “a little housekeeping.” You can best believe they’d get a different description if the momentum was in Donald Trump’s favor. Still, there was no hiding the bad news for him:
STIREWALT: The polling [in Wisconsin] has been so consistent in Joe Biden’s favor and by margins outside the margin of error sometimes, and given everything that we know, and early votes and all, Wisconsin looks like it’s going toward the Democrats.
Then, we go down south, let’s look at Georgia, which is a state that I was very skeptical about Democrats’ chances in, just based on history and what a – remember a electorate looks very different in a presidential year than it does in a midterm election – and I was very skeptical about Democrats’ claims but here at the end, there’s no way to look at it except for this: that Georgia is a toss-up. And I can’t tell you today who’s gonna win that state – hyper competitive, just as much so as Florida.
And then Minnesota, which is a state that the Republicans had once upon a time said they were gonna be competitive in. They’re not and that’s just a little housekeeping.
Anchor Sandra Smith summed up: “So, Wisconsin goes from toss-up to lean Democrat, Georgia from lean Republican to toss-up, Minnesota from lean to likely Democrat.”
Then she quickly segued to hype some good news for Trump. “That being said, you can’t tell us who wins Florida.”
Smith played a clip of Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany claiming, “as of yesterday, we are six percentage points ahead in the early vote” in Florida. She called it a “historic turnout” for Republicans that means “we will win” the state. McEnany is a public servant so “we” should not mean Trump but Americans.
“How much in play is Florida this time around, Chris?” Smith asked.
Stirewalt called Florida the “swingiest swing state” and the “Magilla” that is “so evenly divided.” As he spoke, a graphic appeared on the screen showing that the Real Clear Politics average had Biden leading Trump 48.4% to 47.9%.
“A Republican can’t really win the presidency without Florida,” Stirewalt added.
Then, when asked about the historic early-voter turnout, Stirewalt said he doesn't into it an advantage for either side. “I don’t pay any attention to what Kayleigh McEnany says about who’s gonna win Florida because of the early vote and I don’t pay any attention to the Democrats who say they’re going to win Pennsylvania because of the early vote. I discount it all,” Stirewalt said.
It's true a surge of in-person Trump voters is expected, making it "difficult to extrapolate too much" from the early voting, as The Washington Post's Aaron Blake noted. But not mentioned was the fact that "Democrats are also turning out more low-frequency and newly registered voters than the GOP," as Politico reported, calling it a "more worrisome sign for Republicans" than the Democrats' lead in early voting.
Stirewalt said that early vote is up about 50% because of the pandemic and “I’m not listening to partisans in a year when we’re gonna scramble everybody’s eggs.”
Regardless of how good the polls look for Biden and Democrats, this is no time to get complacent. Republicans and their Dear Leader are already doing everything they can to sabotage, suppress and delegitimize the vote. That means our side has to win overwhelmingly.
So, if you have not already voted, you should vote in person or put your ballot in a drop box. You can find instructions for voting, early voting deadlines, what you’ll need, for every state, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories, at Vote Save America. And whether you’ve already voted or not, volunteer to get more votes here.
Make sure you don’t wake up Wednesday morning wishing you had done more to boot Trump out of the White House!
In your spare time, you can watch Fox note that the only good news for Trump is that he may still Florida, from the October 29, 2020 America’s Newsroom.