Despite the Republican Party taking control of both houses of Congress as well winning additional governors mansions, ABC’s Good Morning America made sure to throw some cold water on the GOP victory. On Wednesday morning, co-host George Stephanopoulos and ABC News Political Analyst Matthew Dowd pushed the line that despite the GOP's midterm victory “the Republican brand is still very damaged.”
2014 Governors
By Curtis Houck | November 5, 2014 | 2:11 AM EST
Early Wednesday morning, liberal CNN political commentator Cornell Belcher groaned during CNN’s midterms elections coverage that the Democratic Party’s top campaigner in President Barack Obama was unable to defend attacks against his record and help Democrats on the campaign trailer because he “was basically locked away in the White House."
By Curtis Houck | November 4, 2014 | 11:43 PM EST
During NBC News’s 10:00 p.m. Eastern midterms elections coverage, NBC News political director and Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd emphasized that the 2014 midterms were not a Republican wave, but changed his mind within the hour to stating the possibility that it may indeed be a GOP wave.
At 10:04 p.m., Todd told Brian Williams in response to his request to walk through “how the Republican plot line” for the evening has unfolded thus far: “What I would say is that everybody is holding serve. Ok? It's a good Republican night, but it's not a wave.” Then, at 10:49 p.m., Todd said this about the current state of affairs of the midterm elections: “I think we're bordering on calling this a wave election. You have an historic number in the House of Representatives.”
By Ken Shepherd | November 4, 2014 | 8:24 PM EST
With the Kentucky Senate race called immediately for incumbent Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, the MSNBC crew immediately went about portraying Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes as an upstart who put up a valiant yet unsuccessful effort against a wiley survivor of tight election campaigns. Grimes's surely has a bright political future, they all agreed, with Hardball host Chris Matthews insisting that Rand Paul's Senate seat is hers for the taking in 2016, provided, of course, that Paul opts not to run for reelection as he instead pursues the presidency.
By Matthew Balan | November 4, 2014 | 5:18 PM EST
CNN's Carol Costello hyped how "Republicans have managed to use fear so successfully in these midterm elections" during interviews of two former governors on Tuesday's CNN Newsroom. Costello contended that "Republicans may be on the verge of winning Senate control – thanks, in large part, to a campaign of fear. If you examine the political ads that many Republican candidates have put out, they don't extol ideas – but Democrats say they do exploit fear."
By Jeffrey Meyer | November 4, 2014 | 11:10 AM EST
On Tuesday, the folks on CBS This Morning did their best to downplay the significance of a potential GOP-controlled Senate in this year’s midterm elections. Unlike ABC and NBC who provided mostly straightforward coverage of today’s elections, CBS made sure to push the line that regardless of the outcomes, the election was an indictment of both political parties. Throughout three segments, multiple CBS News contributors pushed the line that even if Republicans take control of the Senate “not only is this election not about either party's ideas, Democrats or Republicans, but really more about the fact that Americans just want to get rid of whoever is in there now and put somebody else in Washington.”
By Curtis Houck | November 4, 2014 | 2:01 AM EST
On Monday night, NBC continued to doubt the real possibility of the Republicans taking over control of the U.S. Senate following the midterm elections on Tuesday. Both NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams and NBC News political director and Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd expressed reservations during the program’s opening five minutes, as Williams led off by describing the election as a “cliffhanger” with “several big races” that “have perhaps tightened.”
By Curtis Houck | November 3, 2014 | 9:58 PM EST
On Monday’s CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker opined during a roundtable discussion that Tuesday’s governor’s elections in Florida and Wisconsin featuring incumbent Republican Governors Rick Scott and Scott Walker (respectively) will be “a referendum on” the “policies” that the two have implemented in their states based on “the Republican playbook.” After mentioning that Scott is facing Democrat Charlie Crist (failing to mention Crist was both a former Governor and Republican) while Walker’s Democratic challenger is Mary Burke, Whitaker suggested that: “Now, both Scott and Walker have followed the Republican playbook on taxes, on abortion, on same-sex marriage, and tomorrow's kind of shaping up to be a referendum on those policies.”
By Randy Hall | November 3, 2014 | 7:59 PM EST
With only one day to go before the midterm elections, the panelists on Monday's edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe program focused on what could happen if the Republicans take the Senate and gain seats in the House of Representatives.
“I think this is going to be the best thing to ever happen to Barack Obama,” regular analyst Donny Deutsch asserted. “It might wake him up and re-energize him during his last two years” in the White House.
By Scott Whitlock | November 3, 2014 | 5:42 PM EST
The liberals on MSNBC have already begun to pre-spin the reasons behind a possible Democratic disaster in Tuesday's midterms: It's because the party didn't tout Barack Obama's "accomplishments." Host Ronan Farrow complained: "But, if these Democratic candidates are just flouting the President and at a time when he faces a tough environment on the hill already, sort of adding to his woes, do they risk alienating Democratic voters with that kind of divisiveness?"
By Jeffrey Meyer | November 3, 2014 | 1:37 PM EST
On Monday morning, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell appeared on FBN’s Varney & Company to discuss the 2014 midterm elections including a recent MRC study expsoing how the network evening newscasts have provided minimal election coverage compared to the 2006 midterms. During the segment, Bozell argued that “the ideology of the far left that controls the networks has now gone into the arena of journalistic malpractice…I think it’s a direct threat to democracy itself. If you have a public that is not informed, or misinformed by the national news media, it really is hurtful to the democratic process.
By Scott Whitlock | November 3, 2014 | 12:14 PM EST
Considering that ABC's World News failed to cover the midterm elections from September 1 to October 26, one might think the network isn't interested in a possible Republican wave. ABC journalists reinforced that belief by promoting their election night coverage: Seven hours of coverage. But six of those hours will be online only.