Election winners and losers (Part 2)

A recent commentary dealt with winners and losers in the recent election.  I left out a couple of the biggest losers.

Loser: Pollsters.

When discussing the pollsters undercounting Trump’s vote in both 2016 and 2020, MSNBC’s numbers guru Steve Kornacki noted that they never made that same mistake three times in a row.  Going into Election Day, the question was whether they would get it right this time  – or even overcompensate by undercounting the Harris vote.  As it turned out, the pollsters set a new record by yet again undercounting the Trump vote.

Pollsters did not miss by a mile, but by a yard.  They told us that the election was razor thin – within the margin of error.  Based on polling data it was impossible to know which candidate would win each of the battleground states – and which would emerge victorious. Would Trump win in the Electoral College but lose the popular vote?  After all, every poll over many months indicated that Trump had a ceiling in the mid-40 percentile.

While still in the margin-of-error, most polls showed Harris with a very slight lead in the most important battleground states.  And we can recall that Iowa vote that gave Harris a 3-point lead in Hawkeye State.  Trump won Iowa by 3 points. Based on polling data for the battleground states, it was Harris who would likely win in the Electoral College.

So, what happened.

First of all, Trump won.  He won the popular vote, and he won by a wide margin in the Electoral College with 312 votes to Harris’ 226.  Trump won 50.5 percent of the popular vote to Harris’ 48.0 percent.  That was close enough to give pollsters some credibility with the big picture, but it is the state-by-state breakdown where we see the pollsters’ failure

Obviously, Trump did better in the battleground states than polls suggested.  Pew Research had Harris up or tied in five of the seven battleground states. Trump won in all seven.  But the real story in Trump’s winning the popular vote is seen in the bluest of the blue states.

In New York, Trump lost by 23 points in 2020.  This year he cut that margin by half, losing by only 12 points. In 2020, he lost California by 29 points.  This year, by 18.  Trump lost New Jersey by 16 points in 2020, and only 5 points in 2024.  In Illinois, he closed a 17 point gap to only 9 points.  In both Maryland and Massachusetts, Trump closed a 2020 gap of 33 points to 24 points.

At one point on election night, CNN’s John King pulled up a map of every county in which Trump improved his vote by at least 3 points.  The graphic was a sea of red, with Trump improving in the vast majority of American counties. King then pulled up a map of the counties in which Harris had a 3 percent or more improvement over the Biden/Harris ticket in 2020.  There was not one.  Not even a county in her home state of California.  Not even in her hometown of Oakland.

Trump’s victory was overwhelming, and the pollsters missed it … again.

Loser: Left-wing media.

Bias in the media is not new.  Historically, newspapers have been known as conservative or liberal – Republican or Democrat.  In times past, they even reflected their bias in the name of the publication – such as the Little Rock, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Springfield, Massachusetts Republican.  However, that bias was generally reserved for the editorial page.

In the disruptive days of the 1960’s a new form of journalism was introduced in many of the major J-schools.  It was called “advocacy journalism” in which reporters were encouraged to put their own political opinions and biases into news stories.  That was the slippery slope that culminated in what we have today – major media outlets becoming the communications platforms for political establishments.  In addition to reporting the news, the contemporary left- and right-wing media attempts to influence elections and policy.  Since most of the major news media personnel and personalities are progressive Democrats, the industry has tilted significantly to the left.

The left lean of the legacy media has become so pronounced that many major news platforms have essentially become strategic allies of the Democratic Party – and the progressive establishment.  It has had a negative impact on the Fourth Estate’s reputation.   According to a recent Gallup poll, approximately 70 percent of Americans distrust the news media.  That is a worse number than the politicians the new media covers.

MSNBC has been hit particularly hard.  Since Election Day, the far left propaganda station has suffered a 31 percent drop in viewership – and a 54 percent drop in primetime viewership.  In the same period, FOX News viewership jumped by 61 percent.

Media bias was bad enough in 2016 and 2020, but it spiraled out of the margins of reason and reality in 2024.  News outlets, such as MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post, abandoned even the appearance of balance and fairness.  They censored or limited coverage of conservative viewpoints.  And even worse, they propagated the absurdly false propaganda narratives of insurrections, fascism, coup attempts, civil war, political violence, a looming dictatorship and the end of the American Republic.

The left-leaning media took a major hit today.  The disdain – bordering on contempt – of the American people has always had left-wing media failing to find audiences.  Conservative talk shows and podcasts dominate because most Americans reject progressive propaganda parading as news or commentary. 

You will recall that the left launched Air America as a left-wing network.  It failed.  They recruited two former governors – New York’s Mario Cuomo and Texas’ Ann Richards – for a national talk show.  It failed.  They even tried to resurrect the old Phil Donahue Show.  That failed, too. 

The left-wing media is among the big losers in this election because their efforts to force public opinion and influence the vote failed miserably.  Imagine that.  All that effort to convince voters that Trump was a Hitler-style fascist who would literally end the American Republic and all future elections – and more than half of the great American public elected him.  They saw through the lies and false campaign narratives.

If the most damaged members of the Fourth Estate want to regain public confidence, the first step will be a shake-up – bringing in new writers and editors … new shows … new hosts … new panelists.  And a return to reporting news in a fair and balanced manner.

The left-wing political establishment that was rejected by the voters includes the media, whether they know it or not.  If they do not realize that – and fail to make the necessary changes – the public will continue to show its preference for more balance and more traditional journalism.  And the left-wing media will continue to lose.

Judging from the post-election reporting by the left-leaning media, they are too arrogant to learn a lesson.  I suspect they will continue to land on the loser side of the winner/loser lists.

So, there ‘tis.