CBS News has added a latest installment to their ongoing series of panicked items conveying the current state of the race: a recap of their own poll showing former President Trump garnering greater trust on the economy in three key battleground states: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The poll was covered as part of White House correspondent Weijia Jiang’s daily wrapup.
Watch the report in its entirety, as aired on CBS Evening News on Monday, April 29th, 2024:
NORAH O’DONNELL: The race for president is coming into sharper focus with the CBS News Battleground Tracker poll showing President Biden and former President Donald Trump running neck and neck in three key states. CBS's Weijia Jiang has details from the White House.
WEIJIA JIANG: Tonight, the Biden campaign is facing warning signs in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
JOE BIDEN: You are my ticket to The White House. You, Pennsylvania. It's not hyperbole.
JIANG: Rising prices have made the economy a top concern for voters. And in a new CBS poll, when asked if they would be financially better off under Biden or Trump, voters chose the former president by a sizable margin in each of the three states.
Registered voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania believe that they would be better financially off if Trump wins. How do you explain that?
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: The pandemic caused inflation to rise, caused damages to the supply chain. And so that's why the president took action and we also understand that prices are still too high. They’re still too high.
JIANG: More than 60% of voters in the three battlegrounds say that the economy was good during the Trump administration.
DONALD TRUMP: We’re going to have a big victory. The polls are looking tremendous -- Michigan and Wisconsin.
JIANG: The former president will campaign in those two states Wednesday, when his so-called hush money trial takes the day off. Still lagging behind Biden in fundraising, Trump had a private meeting Sunday with his primary rival, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who has told allies he’s willing to raise money for the man who attacked him relentlessly.
TRUMP: We’re up by 40 points over DeSanctimonious.
JIANG: As Trump continues his search for a running mate, sources say one contender’s stock has dropped. South Dakota governor Kristi Noem. She’s under fire for revealing in a new book that she shot her dog Cricket after it misbehaved on a hunting trip, killed some chickens and bit Noem herself.
Governor Noem is defending her actions, citing a South Dakota law that says that dogs that attack and kill livestock can be put down. She said the animal had bitten people before and that she was being a responsible parent, dog owner, and neighbor. Norah.
O’DONNELL: Weijia Jiang, thank you.
It is telling that the report opens with President Joe Biden begging for votes in Pennsylvania. What is different is that there is no covering this poll by meeting with voters from each of these states. When Jiang rattles off the poll’s findings, there is no sense of what the voters are thinking.
The only perspective offered is that of the White House, as Jiang plays back her question to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who proceeded to offer platitudes on inflation:
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: The pandemic caused inflation to rise, caused damages to the supply chain. And so that's why the president took action and we also understand that prices are still too high. They’re still too high.
This was the only perspective that aired outside of Jiang’s reporting. The report then shifted to gossip, namely the purported Trump-DeSants meeting in Miami, and reports of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem’s dog-killing past.
The big takeaway from this story, though, is the sense of nervousness over the CBS poll, and voters in each of these swing states passing judgment on inflation and Bidenomics, despite the media’s best efforts to Protect the Precious.
