So how is Trump within four points if people who watch every other network prefer Clinton? Because way, way more people watch Fox.
It’s difficult to believe there are that many people who 1. watch Fox News 2. Prefer Trump in this
Fox News’ lies and distortions are so blatantly obvious.
The results from each of the networks appear to suffer from selection bias and and are unlikely to represent the electorate as a whole.
Realclearpolitics appears to show a tightening at the moment:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/
That’s what the entire post is really about….bias.
@Kelly_3406
Realclearpolitics doesn’t show a tightening between Clinton and Trump. Look at their graph. If the polls were tightening, you would see the gap between the red and blue lines narrow. But it isn’t. That means the gap isn’t narrowing.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html
There was about a two week bump for Clinton that has been erased by the FBI report. Clinton’s lead is back to the 4 points which she has had steadily since February.
But if all the FBI report did was cut her lead to 4 points, she might as well start measuring the drapes in the Oval Office.
@Dump Trump
If you know anything about statistics, it is important to throw out unrepresentative data.
The Reuters poll showing Hillary with an 11-point lead is unrepresentative and clearly skews the data. When you take that out, the trend is negative for Hillary. Plus we see the first national poll with Trump in the lead.
I imagine that the Hillary campaign is very concerned at the moment that no further negative news about her emerges.
They are probably very excited that Trump is bound to screw up. Can he go two weeks without a major screw up? Hasn’t happened so far.
Trump isn’t going to be elected. He is an unqualified candidate. It doesn’t matter how ignorant some of the electorate is.
@MoonHowler
I don’t understand how you think Hillary is any more qualified than Trump. His lack of experience is offset by her negative experience –I can easily name a dozen major failures for Hillary. Can you name three major successes while she was in office?
Why do I need to? I am sure they wouldn’t be major enough.
He has no experience and is a reprehensible human being. All I need to do is listen to him and what he represents.
Sorry, I simply cannot agree with you. The thought of a Trump presidency is totally unacceptable.
Which office, Kelly? As a first lady she worked side by side with Ed Kennedy and Orrin Hatch to bring in SCHIP, insurance for poor children. As a senator she led the charge on the Lilly Ledbetter act for equal pay for women. She has always been a champion for women’s issues both here and around the world. She also secured millions of dollars post 9-11 rebuild NY.
As a secretary of state, she continued global rights for women and has served as an inspiration world-wide. She negotiated thexease fire to stop Gaza from firing rockets into Israel. She continued work to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons….shall I go on?
I expect you wouldn’t think the women’s initiatives were major enough though…as I said. She has a life-time of accomplishment.
Do you have someone in mind who can match her accomplishments?
@Kelly_3406
You could make a very strong case that the Rasmussen polls showing a slim Trump lead are the real outlyers distorting the results of the RCP average. Everyone else shows a Clinton lead of varying amounts based on sampling.
And ultimately the size of her lead doesn’t matter much. Nobody seriously believes Trump will win the popular vote. Trump has a very, very, very slim chance of winning with his 17 state strategy but he needs a very lucky combination of events to happen. Clinton wins in almost every scenario.
Or are you expecting that Trump is going to get a yuge boost from the convention with Trumpence (sounds like an old British coin) or Trump/Gingrich (“All Wives Matter!”)
Bwahahahahahahahahaha….Trumpence! All Wives Matter!
You have made my day!
@Dump Trump
My view is that none of it matters too much until the vice presidential candidates are named, the conventions have taken place and the debates are about to start. As long as the polls are relatively close, either can win.
Both campaigns could be planning October surprises for all we know. There is plenty of fodder on both sides to allow the campaigns to plan something.
The thing I like about Trump is that he breaks the left-right paradigm that has polarized American politics for years. The conditions which have produced long-term stalemates and seemingly intractable problems could change under him because he is not wed to either side.
I am not saying that Trump would solve them, but the underlying conditions could be changed forever. This could allow rapid (and needed) changes to take place over the next decade.
If Hillary wins, the status quo will be perpetuated. I am not sure how much longer we can tolerate the bad governance that has existed for the last couple of decades.
@Kelly_3406
More polls have come out and Kelly is correct. There has been a tightening in the race between Clinton and The Donald. Clinton still leads, and the gap has been narrower in the past, but it is clear she has taken a little bit of a hit from the FBI investigation. (If you look at the RCP graph the drop is entirely in Clinton support. Trump’s red line barely has moved.)
I suspect this will be temporary, but Kelly was correct in calling the polls as tightening.
The hammering that Hillary that has taken over the email scandal is probably responsible for the tightening of the polls. But fear not. As DumpTrump pointed out on a previous thread, the low-information voters who are so necessary to win a national election will have long forgotten the email scandal by November.
@Kelly_3406
But, Kelly, they also will have forgotten many of the totally disqualifying things Trump has said and either walked back or abandoned over the course of the campaign.
@Scout
Somehow I doubt that. Just this morning, I saw an Op-Ed from Dana Millbank with the title “Trump’s catalogue of offensive remarks”. Try as I might, I could not find a similar column called “Hillary’s catalogue of offensive actions”.
I even noted an attempt by the Washington Post to soften the view that Hillary Clinton is a congenital liar. Glenn Kessler presented a “Pinocchio” comparison between Hillary and Trump with the conclusion that Trump has more falsehoods.
To reach those that avoid printed media, Hillary will get positive spin from shows with people like Maher, Colbert, Fallon and the like. Trump of course will take a beating from those media.
Trump should be taking a beating from all civilized people. He simply isn’t a decent human being, based on his rhetoric.
Who gets their news and political opinions from Colbert, Fallon, and Maher? Seriously!!!
Colbert really has toned down his old “image.” Maher is Maher. I believe you have previously stated no one watches him anyway, a couple years ago. I have no idea what Fallon’s politics are.
@MoonHowler
I do not think that you and I will agree on which candidate is more vile.
However, the issue is not whether we agree, but rather whether the media is presenting the information in a fair and unbiased way. I think that we can agree that is not happening. If Trump is hit hard for his missteps, then Hillary should be hit just as hard for hers.
As for people getting their news from Maher et al, there was a study that showed that >1/3 of millennials get their news from social media and late-night comedy shows.
There used to be college courses on Colbert Nation.
Fortunately, the millennials aren’t the only voting block.
I got news from Jon Stewart back in the day. I also validated it from other sources.
Maher just isn’t real popular. Too much propping up of drunk use and atheism.
I don’t agree that Trump is being hit too hard for his missteps. If Hillary Clinton had said that the Mexicans were rapists, I expect she would have been nailed just as hard. If Hillary had made fun of a handicapped reporter, same deal. She hasn’t. Like her or dislike her, she simply has better manners.
Moon, what is the “paper of record ”
now for the Manassas area? Where
do you get news with a local focus
that is fair and balanced as an often
small but dedicated news room
can make it. How can you keep a sense of
community without a local newspaper?
Took the MJM from 1974 until it closed.
Mention ” Silo ” back then and I would have
thought of Joe Johnson’s farm.
I don’t know. Inside Nova and Bristol Beat are as close at it gets. The Peince William something or other arrives in the driveway every so often.
I would say other than electronically, we are fairly paperless. You are right. We do lose a sense of community.
I’ll give The Donald credit for picking probably the least crazy of his VP options. I’m sure as hell not going to vote for Trumpence but it’s the least scary pick of his options. I was personally hoping for Christie. ‘brash and brasher’ / “Little Boy and Fat Man”.
Maybe The Donald will have a heart attack after the convention and the GOP will end up with a semi-normal candidate. (At least normal by GOP standards) Somebody who actually wants to try to do something instead of just tearing the country apart. Of course, a semi-normal candidate will upset all the Trumpsters who are so angry that Obama got to play in the sand box, that they just want to kick it down the sand castle, take their toys and go home.
“It’s difficult to believe there are that many people who 1. watch Fox News 2. Prefer Trump in this
Fox News’ lies and distortions are so blatantly obvious.”
I don’t think FNC’s “Lies and Distortions” are any more egregious than those of MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, etc. etc.
One of the reasons why FNC does so well in the ratings, is that FNC is the most widely available channel which caters to the right-of-center. All of the others fight over a left-of-center demo.
I don’t have traditional TV or cable, so I don’t watch it anymore. I keep current by listening to the John Batchelor show podcasts, and a couple more. If I feel like I am being propagandized, I quit consuming that outlet’s media.
This might be why “The News Media” has a lower Public Approval Rating than Congress
Why should a channel that has “News” in its name cater to any particular political pre-conceptions or biases?
Excellent question–for which there is no answer, apparently.
@Scout
I am disgusted with what passes for news media these days. Print, broadcast, cable…doesn’t matter to me. These aren’t journalists. They are personalities, each with an agenda. I can still remember Huntley and Brinkley. I used to love to watch “This Week” with Brinkley Those were real journalists.
I don’t watch Fox, or MSNBC, or CNN or any of them. I get a top headline feed on my phone, but it’s a mishmash from all over the web. I’ll read the UK papers (on Kindle), as I find they provide more balanced coverage of the goings on in the US. Somehow, I manage to keep informed.
But I will say this: Fox is a REACTION to the overt liberal slant of all the other outlets. This is why they do so well in the ratings. If the nation is pretty much split evenly (and it appears that it is) left/right, and you have the three broadcast networks, plus CNN, plus, MSNBC all competing for 50% of the market, and FOX pretty much having the other 50%, you will have true ratings dominance. Say what you want about the brand’s journalistic standards (which I think are no different than the other networks, just targeted to their desired demographic) really it’s just about eyeballs. Eyeballs equal ratings. Ratings equal advertising. Advertising equals revenue.
This ain’t “National Panhandler Radio” or PBS News. ABC, NBC, CBS, and the cable outlets are for-profit operations. Identify your addressable market (target demo), develop a product that sells to that market, and build a brand recognized as the top-of-the-heap within that market. Fox could care less if Moon tunes out…as she is not their target demo.
I do find it amusing that she does seem to watch it more that any of the other networks…and she certainly watches it more than I do…considering that I am within their target demo.
I really haven’t watched Faux News in years for any length of time. I found that it put me in a foul mood. Not sure why you think I watch it at all.
@MoonHowler
I don’t know…maybe because you frequently comment on the reporting coming out of that network, going as far as to label it “lies and distortions”. Do you mean that you comment and conclude that these are “lies and distortions” but rarely watch the network?
I catch the abbreviated version. I used to watch it a lot more. Lies and distortions then. Do leopards change their spots? The videos indicate nothing has changed.
@MoonHowler
So which outlet do you believe presents the news without “lies and distortions”?
I listen to or read a variety so I get a good look at what is being said. I am sure they all write to their point of view at one time or another but Fox is habitual for screwing crap. Several on there do not. Most do.
@Scout
One last thing…consider WHY we had/have a couple of hours of news programming on broadcast networks, and why with such dismal ratings, the broadcast networks still program a minimum number of news hours per week…they have to, to maintain their FCC licenses. Same applies to terrestrial radio.
I find it almost impossible to learn very much from Cable news (of any stripe) about what’s going on in the world. Every year, I attend two security conferences in Europe. Usually, I am the only American speaker, and often the only American attendee. Without exception, in talking with my fellow presenters (the majority of whom are from England, Scandinavia, or Germany) I learn about important trends, developments, events that affect US national security that never get a minute’s worth of coverage here. To keep up, I spend a lot of time with BBC and fairly obscure newsletters and services.
The cable news channels here are so ratings driven, that it affects content, as Steve suggests. They present what they think people want to hear or see, not what is important.
MSNBC seems to be trying to move a bit back toward a middle ground lately, getting rid of Al Sharpton and a few others, but the content is predictably skewed liberal. Even Morning Joe, which I like because of the good mix of regular guests, is impenetrable if one is trying to get news. They are all domestic politics all the time. Fox is just a complete joke and the overall editorial policy there seems to be to try to scare the crap out of people about causations and motivations. I suspect that explains their ratings success. I think there are a lot of people who vaguely, perhaps even subconsciously, like being frightened (I call this the “Nightmare on Elm Street” Effect) and who are more “entertained” if, from among seven possible explanations for an event or trend, they are offered the one that posits dastardly motivations by the political figures involved. CNN seems to be have the best international network for simply scooping up raw news as it occurs, but has never been particularly good with analysis or explanation. When something like Nice is breaking, I go to CNN for about 24 hours, until the others start catching up.
I got off of Morning Joe for a while because Joe is so obnoxious. He interrupts, talks over, and is far too impressed with himself. Then I had to go back. No other show has the mix of people. If you can live thru Joe’s bad manners, it really is a fair and balanced discussion most days.
The Onion nails the news – US style.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U4Ha9HQvMo&w=420&h=315%5D