Topic: CNSNews.com
J
oe Biden is leading President Trump by a large margin nationwide -- but you'll rarely read about that at CNSNews.com, despite it claiming to be a "news" operation. Because CNS is operated by the Media Research Center, the media arm of the Trump campaign, the polls it promotes are cherry-picked to fluff Trump and avoid bad news about his campaign.
For example: An Aug. 21 article by managing editor Michael W. Chapman ignored the national numbers to promote a poll claiming that "Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump are statistically tied in the presidential race" in Minnesota, which Trump lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Needless to say, Chapman ignored theoverall polling that shows Biden with a sizable lead; instead, he pushed polling from the Trafalgar Group, which "weights its polls to account for a 'social desirability bias,' or the so-called shy Trump voters who are embarrassed to tell pollsters they support his candidacy." Trafalgar'spolling gets a C-minus rating from FiveThirtyEight.
Speaking of unreliable pollsters, CNS loves reporting on polls by Rasmussen, which has a notorious pro-Trump bias (on top of being on the unreliable side -- only a C-plus from FiveThirtyEight). Here are the Rasmussen polls CNS touted over the past couple months:
- Majority of Black and Other Minority Voters Approve of Trump, Topping Whites’ Approval
- Rasmussen: Approval of Trump’s Job Performance Turns Positive First Time in Over Five Months
- Rasmussen: Trump Approval Rating at 36% Among Black Voters
- Rasmussen Poll: 51% of Likely Voters approve of President Trump's Job Performance
- Rasmussen: ‘Voters Predict Even More Division If Trump Loses Reelection’
- Percent of Voters Who ‘Strongly Approve’ of Trump Sets New Record, Total Approval Ties All-Time High
- Poll: Trump’s Job Approval at Least 50% for 10th Straight Day, Longest Stretch Since 1st Month in Office
- Rasmussen: Young Voters Say Trump Won 1st Debate, 24% Say It Changed Their Vote
Even with more reputable pollsters like Gallup, CNS worked to cherry-pick results. Chapman found another cherry-picked -- and irrelevant -- finding to push in a couple articles:
- Gallup: Trump 42% Approval, Obama 45% Approval at 1,300 days Into First Term
- 4 Weeks to Election: Trump at 46% Approval, Obama Was at 48% Approval
Chapman found another weird (and meaningless) Gallup poll finding in an Oct. 7 article: "In a new poll on President Donald Trump's job approval rating, Gallup found that a majority of Americans predict Trump will win reelection -- only 40% said Biden will win. AndCraig Bannister did a lot of reading into another Gallup finding in an Oct. 13 article, working in an attack on Biden in the process:
Far more registered voters say they’re better off now than they were four years than say they’re worse off, a national Gallup Poll conducted September 14-28, 2020 reveals.
Fifty-six percent (56%) said they’re “better off” now than they were four years ago, while just 32% said they’re worse off.
As President Donald Trump seeks reelection, the 56% reporting that they’re better off now than four years ago tops the scores of four other presidents – Barack Obama, George Bush, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan - at the end of their first terms, Gallup reports.
[...]
On Monday, WKRC-TV asked Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden why the 56% of registered voters who feel they're better off today should vote for him. Biden's response: "They probably shouldn't."
But as CNN's Chris Cillizza points out, the finding conflicts with Trump being behind in the polls and other findings showing that people don't personally like Trump, meaning that voters are not necessarily crediting Trump for making them "better off."
UPDATE: CNS also likes fake polls too. Like its Media Research Center overlords, it touted a Twitter poll claiming that a majority of respondents declared Trump the winner of the first debate.And even more than the MRC did, CNS hid the fact that it was an easily manipulated online poll that is utterly meaningless.
