The Media Should Be Ashamed Of Itself For Reporting the ABC/WaPo Junk Poll

This Sunday, the political media had a proverbial implosion after the release of a poll by ABC/Washington Post, one of the highest rated blue-chip pollsters, showing President Biden losing to Donald Trump by a whopping 7 points in the popular vote, 49% to 42%. Despite the poll showing that a healthy majority of Americans believe Donald Trump should be prosecuted for his crimes, 49% of respondents said they would vote for the former President. Former Bill Clinton campaign advisor and ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos called it "just brutal for President Biden." Donna Brazile, Al Gore's 2000 campaign manager, and former DNC chair, said that she lost sleep over the poll. The Biden train must be coming off the rails, huh? The sky is falling and the world is ending!

First off, without even diving into a single detail of the poll itself, we can debunk its plausibility with the most basic logic and deductive reasoning (a skill that the news media does not currently have). We live in the most divided period of national politics since the late 19th century, and the results of elections RARELY ever swing as wildly as this poll would suggest. If this poll was correct, which it isn't, this would be the largest national margin of victory for a Republican since George H. W. Bush in 1988, and achieving a larger margin of victory than congressional republicans have achieved since...the Truman administration, when Republicans won the House popular vote by 8.5% in 1946. Trump's supposed 7-point victory would also represent a whopping 11.5-point swing from Biden's 4.5% win in 2020, the largest popular-vote swing between two presidential elections since Bill Clinton's 13-point swing in 1992, winning the popular vote by 5%, after Bush won by 8% in 1988. To top this all off, despite Trump recently being indicted and having tried to overthrow the government, he earns 49% of the vote, 2% and 3% higher than his other two respective elections, despite those two elections occurring before either of those events actually occurred. 

For the whole day, the mainstream media, including outlets like ABC, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, which the right-wing continues to label the "liberal media," have been treating this poll like the gospel. "Democrats in disarray!" I feel I must scream to the heavens, do any of the depraved souls in the political analysis offices of any mainstream media outlet have any ounce of common sense? This. Poll. Is. Junk! Democrats just held control of the Senate in 2022, losing no incumbent senator, and picked up a seat in a state Joe Biden only won by 1.2%. They came within 5 seats of holding the House. Only one incumbent Democratic governor lost. And now you think that Donald Trump, in the last 6 months, which has seen no significant change in the political landscape, except that the guy was indicted, has suddenly achieved the largest swing in the popular vote since Clinton? "Give me a break! That is a bunch of malarkey!" 

Assuming an across-the-board swing in the states, (which would probably not happen, but this is for the purpose of a general impression) Trump's imaginary 11-point swing to a 7-point victory would make this the electoral map: 

Trump: 347. Biden: 191.

Oh, please. This is getting stupid. But don't worry, because we haven't even gotten to the egregiously implausible cross-tabs yet.

When it came to race -

- The poll showed Biden winning Latino voters by a margin of only 9 points. He won them by 33 points in 2020.

- Despite the fact that in most polling, 10% of a sample is considered large enough to make a cross-tab statistic, not enough black voters were even polled to show the result, meaning that black voters, representing 12% of the population, were so underrepresented in the poll that we don't know the results for them.

- Among all non-white voters, Biden only wins by 12 points. He won them by 45 points in 2020.

- Among white voters, the poll showed Trump winning by 17 points, the exact same margin as 2020, despite an 11-point swing towards Trump overall.

When it came to age, the results were even more ludicrous:

- Among age 18-39, the poll showed Trump winning by 11 points. In 2020, Biden won that age group by just over 14 points.

- Among age 65+, the poll showed Biden winning by 11 points. In 2020, Biden won that age group by 5 points.

These numbers were not hard to find, and they should have been even easier for the cable news anchors of these mainstream media organizations that reported this poll as real news. But we know why the media reported this story: It generated clicks. Hell, I had to click on about 10 news stories about this topic just to write this article. ABC, CNN, and the Washington Post don't care at all if they report obviously false information about the most important presidential election in our lifetimes as long as it helps their advertisers. It's disgusting. Every reporter giving this poll any credibility should wake up tomorrow and never go back to work again. You don't belong in news if you can't report actual fact.