Despite Record Reporting Bias, Trump’s Base Remains Solid

Townhall.com ^ | May 24, 2017 | Andy Schlafly

[Kaslin]

A recent Harvard study confirms that there has been record-breaking reporting bias against President Donald Trump. An astounding 80% of the stories about Trump by the mainstream media during his first 100 days in office have been negative.

The real story, however, is how Trump’s base remains solid, unfazed by the persistent media negativity. Trump’s approval rating has not fallen to the low ratings of former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, the prior Republicans in the White House.

For many of Trump’s supporters, the unrelenting bias against him simply confirms the nature of the problem facing America. The swamp known as D.C. and their allies in the media are protesting too much, to paraphrase Shakespeare’s famous expression from Hamlet.

Their hysteria against Trump underscores the urgency for someone to stand up against the entrenched interests in D.C. This unfolding battle reinforces how our country needs someone strong enough to get the job done against all odds.

There are 206 counties that voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 but then for Trump in 2016, which Ballotpedia calls “Pivot Counties.” Located in 34 states, these Pivot Counties comprised a total of 7.5 million votes in 2016, which was 5.5% of the electorate and provided the margin of difference for Trump to prevail.

The Allott Brothers are studying a subset of these Pivot Counties as a project of the Washington Examiner. Their work illustrates that Trump’s most important support is not from the stereotypical rich white males as Trump’s detractors pretend.

On Monday Daniel Allott released his analysis of Robeson County, North Carolina, which switched from voting for Obama in both of his elections to voting for Trump last November. It is the state’s largest county, and was one of the six Pivot Counties in North Carolina that went from thoroughly blue to bright red, i.e., from Democrat to Republican, thereby enabling Trump to carry the state.

Obama had carried Robeson County by a landslide margin of 17 points in 2012, but then Trump carried it by 4 points in 2016. That is a 21-point swing in just four years.

Robeson County, like many of the Pivot Counties, is awash in poverty and what Daniel Allott calls “cultural despair.” Prior to Trump, a Republican presidential candidate had not won the county since 1972.

Robeson County is not overwhelmingly white in race as one might mistakenly think. To the contrary, Robeson County is racially diverse, with more than half of its voters either American Indian or African American.

It has been devastated by the loss of manufacturing jobs, and its average income is only $30,000 today, far less than the national average. This is one of hundreds of counties in the United States which has been ravaged by the so-called “free trade” that deprives Americans of good jobs while enriching Wall Street.

Two-thirds of our country contains at least one Pivot County, and the biggest clusters of them are in Iowa and Maine. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois all have their share of these counties too.

Equally telling are the states that have no Pivot Counties, where voters are so locked into the Democratic machine that not even a charismatic candidate like Trump can dislodge the grip. Liberal strongholds of California, Massachusetts, and Nevada, for example, did not have a single county that switched from Obama to Trump.

Western Pennsylvania is the region perhaps most crucial to the presidential election in 2020, as the prize of 20 electoral college votes from that state is difficult to make up elsewhere. When it became apparent that Trump had won Pennsylvania last November, the keys to the White House were his.

Trump’s popularity in Western Pennsylvania has even increased amid all the media-bashing of his presidency. A 60-year-old Democrat from the area, Robert “R.J.” Sokol, was quoted recently as saying “I think he's doing what he thinks is best for the country.”

Sokol is a supervisor at a chemical plant, so he knows a thing or two about the need for manufacturing jobs. As to Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, Sokol said, “This country needs a shake-up.”

Statewide, Trump’s approval rating in Pennsylvania has risen nearly to that of its Democratic Senator Bob Casey, who is up for reelection. Given that Democrats have an advantage of nearly one million registered voters more than Republicans in Pennsylvania, it is phenomenal that Trump does so well there as a Republican, and Trump’s approval rating has even improved significantly there since he took office.

A Washington Post poll reveals that 96% of Trump voters would cast their ballots for him again, while only 85% of Hillary voters would. The more Trump is unfairly disparaged by the elite, the more his supporters rightly stand by their man.

[Parley Baer]

President Trump is keeping his campaign promises. As along as he continues to do this the people will support him.

[Rapscallion]

How about Rudy Guilianifor FBI director?

[ForYourChildren]

And just with CNN we have:

"Study: CNN Is Completely Obsessed With Donald Trump — and Not in a Good Way"
Rich Noyes
May 16, 2017

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2017/05/16/study-cnn-completely-obsessed-donald-trump-%E2%80%94-and-not-good-way

"To get a handle on CNN’s news priorities during the Trump era, a team of MRC analysts reviewed all of the cable network’s programming on Friday, May 12, starting with the 4am ET Early Start and continuing through the 11pm ET CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, a total of 20 hours of material. .."

[COBOL2Java]

President Trump is keeping his campaign promises. As along as he continues to do this the people will support him.

Not to mention the fact that Trump is not a politician, and - which infuriates some here - he is NOT an ideologue. Although he ran on the Republican ticket, he's not a Republican; he's not a Democrat; he's not a Conservative; he's not a Liberal. He is simply a Patriot who wants to save America. As such, he's going to doubtless infuriate every single ideology I mentioned above one way or another.

He *absolutely* is infuriating the inside-the-beltway UniParty! They want to destroy him with every fiber of their being, because he is destroying their way of life. And the #NeverTrump'ers have found common ground with the UniParty cabal.

[babble-on]

I think this is true. The people who really liked Trump during the campaign still really like him.

[pfony1]

I’d like to see President Trump “recess-appoint” Mr. Giuliani as ACTING FBI HEAD during this Memorial Day holiday, with the understanding that Mr. Giuliani would serve until a PERMANENT FBI HEAD was confirmed by the Senate.

Then, Schumer’s merry band of obstructionists could play their delaying games as long as they want to — while Giuliani cleans house at the FBI and promptly brings important politicized cases to fact-based conclusions.

The media will loudly “object”, but isn’t that a “plus”?

[Slyfox]

Hey, Harvard! Do another study asking us all how many of us are still tuning in to the lamestream news anymore.

[MNJohnnie]

Of course, the recognize the reptiles in the DC Media/Politcal/Business machine are their real enemies

DC keeps trying to apply their standard playbook to Trump. They still cannot grasp the same old playbook does not work anymore.

The American people want solutions, not more stupid poltical games.

[Pollster1]

Liberals are like the overprotective parents of a teenage girl.

____________________________________________________________

Girl: Come check out the new guy I met.

Parent: We hate him.

Girl: You haven’t met him yet.

Parent: Dump him. Break up. He’s wrong for you. He’s selfish, stupid, lazy, and all wrong for you.

Normal Person: You said the same thing about every guy all the way back to the ob/gyn who delivered me.

Parent: And we were right about them all.

____________________________________________________________

Normal Person: Come check out the new republican candidate I met.

Liberal: We hate him.

Normal Person: You haven’t met him yet.

Liberal: Impeach him. Vote him out. He’s wrong for you. He’s a racist, sexist, nasty, mean spirited bigot, buffoon, moron.

Normal Person: You said the same thing about every republican all the way back to Abe Lincoln.

Liberal: And we were right about them all.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Rudy would have been a great pick twenty years ago.
This job calls for someone younger and more energetic.
Someone who can put in 80-hour weeks tracking down traitors.

[thulldud]

An astounding 80% of the stories about Trump by the mainstream media during his first 100 days in office have been negative.

As to the other 20%, we blinked and missed them.

What exactly is "astounding" about it?

[FlipWilson]

Could it be that the bias is what feeds the base and that the MSM is too freaking stupid to get it. Trump said there was a swamp and that the system was rigged. He said that the media was part of the system and was equally as corrupt.

Every damn day the media confirms what Trump said as being true. They unwittingly strengthen his credibility with his base.

If they wanted to truly separate him from his base, the MSM would have to go right. They would have to harp daily on his failures (based on anonymous sources, of course) to enact a conservative agenda. They would have to report these stories from the point of view of it being bad for the country that he wasn’t enacting a conservative agenda. By their very nature, they are incapable of every doing this.

[ActresponsiblyinVA]

I agree. Give him time to fulfill his campaign promises.

[tbw2]

Because they called Bush Hitler, crazy, stupid, irrational, too.

[jmaroneps37]

The only people who are surprised by this are the dopes that STILL don’t accept that we hate the F%^King media and don’t give a damn what they have to say. Some dopes will never learn.

[Sergio]

bkmk

[dp0622]

A Washington Post poll reveals that 96% of Trump voters would cast their ballots for him again...

Can’t be. MSM said he’s only getting 75 percent support from Republicans.

And they wouldn’t lie. Or something.

[Impy]

Nevada is not a lib stronghold. No counties switched cause only 2 voted Obama 2012 in the first place.

[scottinoc]

I give CNN some credit, they’re the only network that had at least one honest-to-goodness Trump supporter on during election night coverage. The rest had 6 or 7 lefties and a token “Republican Strategist” (i.e. Never-Trumper).