ABC Gets Called Out for Sneaky Pre-Debate Poll Trick: 'Trying to Set Up a Particular Narrative'
It would almost be impressive if the naked brazenness of it all wasn’t so abhorrent.
Believe it or not, the establishment media is shilling for the Democratic presidential nominee — Vice President Kamala Harris — going into Tuesday’s highly-anticipated presidential debate against former President Donald Trump.
Now, this is actually expected behavior from Democratic apparatchiks, but this particular instance has two extra problems:
- The establishment media outfit in question is hosting said debate.
- Said media network hasn’t exactly been hesitant to let their anti-Trump biases show (more on this later).
ABC News is set to host the ballyhooed debate between Harris and Trump on Tuesday, and wouldn’t you know it? ABC is out here peddling some wildly out-of-context “good news” about Harris.
To wit, on Monday, ABC News posted a curious article — again, just 24 hours before the debate — touting Harris’ rising popularity among “likely voters.”
After calling the polling between Harris and Trump “virtually identical,” the article boastfully claims that “closer assessment shows movement to Harris in some groups when comparing all adults with likely voters — notably, those younger than 40, younger women in particular and black people.”
Oh, boy. Here we go.
“This analysis, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, finds that support for Harris goes from 54 percent of all adults younger than 40 to 64 percent of those identified as likely voters,” ABC claimed. “Trump’s support, meanwhile, drops from 42 percent of adults in this age group to 33 percent of those likely to vote.”
To save you the trouble of the ABC News “poll,” just know that the entire Monday article stunk — and it’s easy to see why.
Curiously absent from Monday’s article, ABC failed to mention anything important about polling, like sample size, margin of error and dates.
No, that methodology was buried in a completely separate article from Sept. 1 that effectively made assertions identical to the Monday article.
Unsurprisingly, ABC News was called out for this duplicity on social media.
Washington Examiner correspondent Byron York astutely pointed out that while these numbers may have been valid at one point (the original polling took place from Aug. 23 to Aug. 27), this truncated election season means that any information from late August is going to be woefully outdated by the time the second week of September rolls around.
Posted this morning, this appears to be based on an ABC poll conducted August 23-27. ABC didn’t do a new poll to set the stage for its own debate? https://t.co/ZhNNXQqUnH
— Byron York (@ByronYork) September 9, 2024
“Posted this morning, this appears to be based on an ABC poll conducted August 23-27,” York posted to social media platform X. “ABC didn’t do a new poll to set the stage for its own debate?”
Another X user excoriated ABC News by citing pollster Nate Silver’s own models — none of which are too friendly towards Harris.
Reporter Rusty Weiss was similarly flabbergasted that this information was being presented as “new” or even newsworthy.
Holy s—, you rubes. This poll was conducted last month. And new polls – even left-leaning ones – now show Trump back in the lead.
Weird how that’s not mentioned at all in your report. Almost like you’re trying to set up a particular narrative heading into your own debate.…
— Rusty (@Rusty_Weiss) September 9, 2024
“Holy s***, you rubes,” Weiss began on X. “This poll was conducted last month. And new polls – even left-leaning ones – now show Trump back in the lead.
“Weird how that’s not mentioned at all in your report. Almost like you’re trying to set up a particular narrative heading into your own debate.”
Speaking of setting up particular narratives, this brings us to the other major issue with ABC News’ shameless shilling.
Had this one poll and the inexplicable decision to re-post it on Monday been the only incident leading to Tuesday’s debate, it would probably be much ado about nothing. Most people would be able to brush this off as a rather innocuous bit of Democrat cheerleading.
But, as you can surely tell, this hasn’t been the only noteworthy incident bringing into question ABC’s biases — or “particular narrative” — against Trump.
First, there were the recent reports that ABC News had given “assurances” to Harris’ team that certain debate rules would be bent in her favor.
(In complete fairness, the outlet has denied those reports, but the fact that it’s so eminently believable says quite a lot on its own.)
Before that, there was an even bigger red flag when ABC News host Linsey Davis casually linked Trump to the Ku Klux Klan.
No big deal here … except for the fact that Davis is a debate moderator.
If any of these incidents happened on their own in a vacuum, perhaps you just chalk it up as a (particularly) bad day at ABC News.
But all together?
It stinks like a corrupt hyena’s den … and it’s pretty clear former President Donald Trump is walking headfirst into it on Tuesday.
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