So much of the “news product” we consume today isn’t about what has already happened. It’s about what could happen in the near future. Forget a microscope on the past. Get out the crystal ball. When it comes to the fortunes of the Democrats, the picture often takes on a rosy hue.
When conservatives dismiss our most “prestigious” newspapers as partisan Democrat rags, it comes from stories like the August 25 “News Analysis” editorial on the front page of The New York Times. It’s a piece by congressional reporter Carl Hulse titled "The Midterms Feel Like '06 Is Back Again." That’s a year when the Democrats gained 31 seats and Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House.
Twenty years later, Hulse insisted the GOP again faces “a grim backdrop” with “a steep challenge for Republicans.” Who would love a repeat of this scenario? Democrats. "It is striking," Sen. Charles Schumer of New York proclaimed in the Hulse piece. "The analogy is amazing." Rahm Emanuel, who headed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006, added “This is 2006 2.0. The similarities are eerie.”
At the bottom of the column, they pushed more Happy News: “Path to Majority: An unpopular president has opened a door for Senate Democrats. See Page A-10.” The headline there: "Democrats Open More Paths To Win Back Senate Control."
Reporter Tim Balk proclaimed “Democrats have opened up more than one path to winning control of the Senate,” while acknowledging “Republicans still hold significant advantages.” Photographs implied momentum behind Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, Mary Peltola in Alaska, Abdul el-Sayed in Michigan, and “centrist Democrat” Josh Turek in Iowa.
On August 26, the front page of The Washington Post carried more wishful imagination: “Canada trade fight could cost the GOP.” Reporters Gregory Schneider and Praveena Somasondarum relayed the obvious that an erupting trade war between the U.S. and Canada “added a new shock to midterm elections already dominated by price concerns.”
Inside the paper, the peppy headline was “Threat of higher prices over tariffs gives fresh life to Democratic arguments.” It sounds like cheerleading for inflation. The headline built off the article, with reporters oozing: “The threat of higher prices on consumer goods including gasoline, automobiles, and hockey sticks gave fresh life to Democratic arguments that Trump is destabilizing the economy.”
It’s certainly true that Trump’s aggressive tariff-tossing can build anxiety, which explains why his approval ratings are poor. The Iran war and the trade war aren’t reassuring to voters. But you can easily deduce that reporters are terrible at hiding their glee over the situation.
Trump campaigned on fighting inflation, the Post reporters wrote, “but since taking office last year has taken a series of actions widely seen as making things worse.” They touted Democrat victories in 2025 and polls showing disapproval of Trump on tariffs, and specifically on tariffs on Canadian goods.
The story ended with a Washington Post-Ipsos poll that found 43 percent of voters said they were “not as well off” as they were when Trump took office last January. That doesn’t look great. But at this point two years ago, the Washington Post poll had Kamala Harris up by four points…and in November, she lost the popular vote by 1.5 percent.
Voters want a sense of the horse race, who might be winning and losing. But we’ve seen that polls can be wrong. We’ve certainly seen that liberal journalists habitually manufacture Keep Hope Alive content for Democrats. CNN segments on how Harris was going to turbo-charge “Brat Summer” memes for Gen Z and headlines like Time magazine’s “Don’t Underestimate Kamala Harris’ Good Vibes Only Campaign” didn’t actually work. They fizzled.
