Polling

Press Covers For Crist's Tired Excuses For Florida's Jobs Freefall on His Watch
By Tom Blumer | October 22, 2014 | 8:40 PM EDT

At their debate Tuesday night, former Florida governor (2007-2010), former Republican (1974-2010), former independent (2010-2012) and current Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist got out the crying towel over why the Sunshine State's economy was so bad on his watch. He also refused to acknowledge that incumbent Republican Governor Rick Scott deserves any credit for the state economy's overachievement during the past 45 months.

At the debate, Crist tried to explain away the economic disaster which occurred during his term in office by claiming that — quoting from the debate transcript — "I was serving during the global economic meltdown. And we did the very best we could to get Florida through it and we did." As seen after the jump, the "best we could do" for Crist was far, far worse than the rest of nation's "best" could do. As would be expected, I haven't found any establishment press coverage which has made the comparisons which follow.

AP Downplays Key Poll Finding: Democrats' Advantage Among Women Is Gone
By Tom Blumer | October 22, 2014 | 9:28 AM EDT

In relaying the results of their polling partnership's latest survey, Associated Press polling director Jennifer Agiesta and reporter Emily Swanson held their most important finding until their report's seventh paragraph.

Despite their effort to downplay it, Matt Drudge, whose nose for genuine news is legendary, spotted it. Accordingly, his current headline screams: "POLL SHOCK: WOMEN WANT REPUBLICANS!"

WSJ Doesn't Explain Graph Showing Biggest Midterm Right/Wrong Track Gap In at Least 28 Years
By Tom Blumer | October 21, 2014 | 4:02 PM EDT

Elizabeth Williamson's coverage at the Wall Street Journal of the latest WSJ/NBC News poll has a very strange omission.

It contains a graph showing "right track/wrong track" polling percentages heading each midterm election going back to 1990. But Williamson, while addressing why the American people feel as they do right now in larger historical context, never commented on the graph's specific message, which is about as damning as it can get:

Frank Luntz on CBS: 'Collapse in Confidence' of Government, Media
By Kyle Drennen | October 17, 2014 | 4:15 PM EDT

Appearing on Friday's CBS This Morning, Republican pollster Frank Luntz reacted to the latest CBS News poll showing Americans having a "crisis of confidence" in government institutions: "The problem is that the institutions that have the greatest impact on us, the CDC, the FDA, the EPA, those that are responsible for our health and safety, are the ones that have had the biggest collapse. In fact, in some cases it's 20-30-point drop in just the last 15-18 months."

AP-GfK Poll Rates GOP Leaders in 'Congress,' But Not Dems in Senate
By Tom Blumer | October 5, 2014 | 7:10 PM EDT

The polling partnership of the Associated Press and GfK Public Affairs & Corporate Communications conducted its final pre-early voting survey of the American electorate during the five days ended September 29.

It would be pretty hard to argue against the idea that the polling effort searched for answers it could use, while avoiding getting — or at least publishing — answers it wouldn't like. The best example of this "cleverness" is embodied in whose approval and disapproval numbers the survey chose to disclose.

CNN's Brian Stelter Skips Media Bias Debate for Anthony Weiner, Non-Partisan 'Bad Boy'
By Matthew Balan | September 22, 2014 | 6:46 PM EDT

On Sunday's Reliable Sources, CNN's Brian Stelter touted a disgraced former representative as a non-partisan pundit and as an expert on media bias: "Now, I could bring in two partisan commentators now to argue about the media, but I'd rather from someone who's been in the glare of the news media – someone who's all too familiar with what happens when you go from darling to bad boy – then, maybe, back and forth. That's former Congressman Anthony Weiner."

NBC Reveals Latest Poll on Scandal-Plagued Administration...Of the NFL
By Kyle Drennen | September 19, 2014 | 11:39 AM EDT

On Friday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer brought on political director and Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd to discuss the latest NBC News/Marist poll on a major American institution being rocked by scandal. It wasn't the Obama administration getting the bad press, it was the National Football League.

That's right, NBC News conducted an entire poll just on the controversies surrounding the NFL and then put its chief political expert on air to analyze the findings. Not a single mention of President Obama's sinking poll numbers was mentioned during the Today segment, not even any reference to politics. [Listen to the audio]

Unlike ABC News, ABC’s The View Acknowledges Obama’s Low Job Approval
By Jeffrey Meyer | September 18, 2014 | 4:07 PM EDT

On Thursday, September 18, a strange thing happened: ABC actually covered President Obama’s plummeting poll numbers. No, not ABC News, but the daytime ABC program The View which spent nearly four minutes discussing his falling poll numbers. Moderator Whoopi Goldberg proclaimed that President Obama “might be afraid…the latest approval ratings seemed to have sunk lower than George Bush's levels. Partly because more than half of Americans are disapproving of the way he seems to be handling terrorism.” 

Liberal Anger Drives Gallup Poll Showing All-Time Low In Public Confidence In The Media
By Tim Graham | September 17, 2014 | 5:03 PM EDT

The pollsters at Gallup reported on Wednesday that Americans' confidence in the media's ability to report "the news fully, accurately, and fairly" has dropped to its previous all-time low of 40 percent. That number was at 55 percent in 1999, but hasn’t been above 50 percent since 2005.

The media is really struggling among Democrats, who have “traditionally expressed much higher levels of confidence in the media than Republicans have,” but their confidence (“great deal or fair amount of trust”) dropped to a 14-year low of 54 percent. Republican confidence dropped to 27 percent.

More Polling the Press Will Ignore: Trust in Federal Govt. at All-Time Low
By Tom Blumer | September 11, 2014 | 1:38 PM EDT

A new Gallup poll reports that Americans trust the federal government less than they ever have. Given that President Obama has increasingly insisted on acting on his own, it's not unreasonable to infer that this result means, consistent with other polling the press has stubbornly ignored — documented in a new Media Research Center study — that they also trust his leadership less than they ever have.

Gallup's main headline dressed up the results up by focusing on only half of what it found: "Trust in Federal Gov't on International Issues at New Low." But the subheadline says, "Americans' trust in government handling of domestic problems also at record low." Okay, guys. What problems aren't either domestic, international, or a combination of both? So trust in the federal government to handle any problems is at an all-time low. How tough is it to say that?

CNBC's Mangan Spins Bad-News Obamacare Poll Into 'Obama-Who-Cares'
By Tom Blumer | September 9, 2014 | 4:13 PM EDT

CNBC's Dan Mangan, last seen at NewsBusters claiming that the American people want politicians to just "shut up about Obamacare," is out with a column today reacting to the Kaiser Family Foundation's latest Affordable Care Act-related polling effort.

Sarah Ferris at the Hill also reviewed the poll, and has two primary messages for readers. First, "support for ObamaCare continues to fall." Second, "Healthcare remains one of the most important issues in midterm elections, ranking only behind the economy and jobs as voters’ top issue." To be clear "the economy and jobs" is considered one issue. So it's really pathetic how Mangan twisted the same poll Ferris covered (bolds are mine):

MRC Study: TV Buries the Bad News on Obama’s Collapsing Polls
By Rich Noyes | September 8, 2014 | 4:50 PM EDT

As President Obama’s approval ratings have tumbled in 2014, polling news has practically vanished from the Big Three evening newscasts — in stunning contrast to how those same newscasts relentlessly emphasized polls showing bad news for George W. Bush during the same phase of his presidency.