The Washington news media echo chamber found itself in an embarrassing spot, made only worse by the excuses that filled the airwaves and pages after a week’s worth of overwrought headlines that put way too much stock in a horse race poll a year out from the real poll one year from now. The New York Times/Sienna poll which showed Biden trailing, in some cases badly in critical swing states led to story after story about the dire shape Democrats find themselves in with President Joe Biden as their standard bearer. Panels wrung their hands, cable news outlets went into breathless mode, and newspapers — led by the Times itself –covered every angle without context.
It was manufactured news that ignored important factors, such as history. Year-out polls are rarely accurate predictors of the actual election. Barack Obama would have lost twice if they were. They ignored other polls, including one in Pennsylvania, a key swing state that showed Biden ahead, and a GOP poll that showed the President ahead in Nevada.
Few questioned the Times poll results that showed Donald Trump behind Joe Biden by a mere one point among young voters. It also showed Trump with 22% African-American support and gaining among Hispanics.
Context would be to point out, just how unlikely that would be, since Trump routinely denounces the Black Lives Matter movement, and disrespects black prosecutors with slander he reserves only for minorities. He calls New York attorney general Leticia James “peekaboo”, widely known as a racist slur.
His past includes court findings that he discriminated against black tenants in New York City and called for the execution of the “Central Park 5”, a group of African American teens exonerated after racist hysteria spurred by full-page ads paid for by Trump led to their conviction. When that was overturned Trump never apologized. And the context of Latinos now threatened with mass deportation by Trump at his rallies was not mentioned in these stories either.
As for young people and women, to whom abortion rights remain top of mind, once Trump’s clips of him saying “I’m responsible for the overturning of Roe vs Wade” are played in commercial after commercial over the next year, oh, and don’t forget his comments to Chris Matthews in 2016 that women who have abortions should be prosecuted, are also to saturate the airwaves, any inroads among the youth are sure to disappear.
Still, the hand-wringing among democrats was loud and repeated. As Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin put it: “The easiest job in political reporting is finding nervous Democrats”.
And it didn’t stop there. Two days after the outlier poll, real news happened. A real poll, taken at the voting booth, a sacred place where there are no nuanced questions or pollster you don’t know or trust asking you a series of questions. It’s there in black and white. Joe Biden’s policies are popular and won. Abortion was literally on the ballot in swing state, Republica-leaning Ohio, and pro-choice won in a landslide. A double-digit victory 56% to 43%.
In Virginia, where media favorite, now suddenly fading, Glenn Youngkin (R) was pushing for abortion limits, hoping to control both houses of their commonwealth’s legislature. He lost both. A resounding defeat for the GOP.
The Democrats stopped the predicted Red Wave in 2022 and rode the women vote to another victory this year, context the Washington punditry class even now refuses to acknowledge. On Sunday, Meet the Press host Kristen Welker tortuously both-sided the week’s events with the premise that it was an “up and down week” for President Biden. Somehow equating a suspect poll with an actual election. These two things are not the same. The poll means nothing, actual voting counts. It means women have a choice over decisions about their bodies, the poll means insider Washington had something to fret over.
