Donald Trump and his allies have increasingly rallied around an explanation for his lopsided debate loss on Tuesday night: the lamestream media.<\/p>\n
ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis\u2019s move to fact-check Trump on a few occasions has engendered the most pushback. Trump and his allies have pitched the event as being \u201cthree on one\u201d rather than a head-to-head clash with Vice President Kamala Harris. Even some conservative Trump critics have taken some issue, suggesting Harris should have been fact-checked, too.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a difficult subject, and many moderators \u2014 like CNN\u2019s in June \u2014 choose not to inject themselves in this way. For those interested in the debate over debate fact-checking, I\u2019d point you to Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler\u2019s thoughtful thread. (He correctly notes that there is no comparison between the amount of misinformation Trump puts out and that of Harris. And Muir\u2019s and Davis\u2019s fact checks avoided some pitfalls from the past.)<\/p>\n
The early reviews of the moderators are now in. And at the moment, it seems unlikely this will help Trump too much as he tries to explain away the debate.<\/p>\n
A post-debate YouGov poll found that registered voters said by double digits that the moderators were \u201cfair and unbiased.\u201d While 43 percent said that, 29 percent said they were biased in Harris\u2019s favor, and 4 percent said they were biased in Trump\u2019s favor. There was a big partisan split, with 55 percent of Republicans saying the moderators were biased in Harris\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n
Those aren\u2019t resounding numbers for the moderators, and many more voters felt that the moderators favored Harris than Trump. But those caveats deserve context.<\/p>\n
The first thing to note is that this question was asked of all registered voters \u2014 not just debate-watchers. Many who offered no opinion might not have seen the debate. A clear majority of those offering an opinion said the moderators were \u201cfair and unbiased,\u201d and 6 in 10 chose an option other than that they were biased in Harris\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n
The other main point is that, while Republicans clearly saw bias, that\u2019s largely baked in to such events at this point.<\/p>\n
Republicans have for years \u2014 decades \u2014 perceived the mainstream media as being biased against their side, to the point where a Reuters\/Ipsos poll in July showed 70 percent of Republicans agreed with the statement, \u201cThe mainstream media is biased and should be punished.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the new poll numbers are in line with how Republicans have responded to debates for years, as historic YouGov polling shows.<\/p>\n
After the first debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016, 6 in 10 Republicans disapproved of NBC anchor Lester Holt\u2019s moderating. After another debate, three-quarters rated CNN\u2019s Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz as only \u201cfair\u201d or \u201cpoor.\u201d (Third-debate moderator Chris Wallace, then of Fox News, was the only moderator to get strong, bipartisan marks that year.)<\/p>\n
By 2020, three-quarters of Republicans rated USA Today\u2019s Susan Page as \u201cfair\u201d or \u201cpoor.\u201d And after a particularly unwieldy debate, 8 in 10 called Wallace\u2019s performance \u201cfair\u201d or \u201cpoor\u201d \u2014 including a majority that said it was \u201cpoor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps the biggest clash between Trump and a debate moderator, though, came nine years ago \u2014 shortly after Trump launched his first campaign. Then-Fox News host Megyn Kelly asked Trump some very tough questions at a GOP primary debate, including starting the debate by invoking his past disparaging remarks about women. (Trump went on to say Kelly had \u201cblood coming out of her wherever.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Trump wasn\u2019t terribly popular with Republicans yet at this point, with only about half reviewing him favorably. But YouGov polling showed Republicans sided with him over the Fox News host.<\/p>\n
These questions are all different from those asking whether the moderators were biased, and there are some nuances within them. But it\u2019s evident that large numbers of Republicans more often than not take issue with debate moderators \u2014 even when there isn\u2019t the same degree of pushback after the debate as there is now. That\u2019s not to say anybody\u2019s opinion is wrong; it\u2019s just that this is typical.<\/p>\n
Indeed, there\u2019s plenty of evidence that Republicans appear predisposed to object. Polling last decade showed more than 7 in 10 Republicans went into debates anticipating bias against their side. And a 2016 YouGov poll showed Republicans said 52-30 that they don\u2019t want moderators to fact-check the candidates. (By contrast, both Democrats and independents did want fact-checking.)<\/p>\n
We do have one poll in which the exact same question was asked. It came after the June 27 debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, and relatively few people saw bias. YouGov polling showed 10 percent overall and 21 percent of Republicans thought CNN\u2019s moderators were biased against Trump.<\/p>\n
Of course, this was after a debate that not only involved no fact-checking, but also was a rout for Trump. There wasn\u2019t really much to object to. And yet, nearly half as many Republicans saw bias (21 percent) as saw fairness and balance (44 percent).<\/p>\n
The other key thing to note here is that, while most Republicans saw bias against Trump in Tuesday\u2019s moderation, a significant number didn\u2019t. Of those offering an opinion, about 3 in 10 didn\u2019t perceive bias against Trump. If it was so evident that he was being railroaded, then you might expect a stronger response.<\/p>\n
More negative responses could still come, as Trump and his allies continue to press the case. And if nothing else, the backlash could have a chilling effect on future moderators who might inject themselves into the debate as ABC\u2019s did.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Donald Trump and his allies have increasingly rallied around an explanation for his lopsided debate loss on Tuesday night: the lamestream media. ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis\u2019s move to fact-check Trump on a few occasions has engendered the most pushback. Trump and his allies have pitched the event as being \u201cthree on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}