Dear POLITICO: Maybe You Should Rethink This Whole Journalism Thing
“You spin me right 'round, baby
Right 'round like a record, baby
Right 'round, 'round, 'round
You spin me right 'round, baby
Right 'round like a record, baby
Right 'round, 'round, 'round…” – Dead or Alive – “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)”
Talk about spin!
A recent piece in POLITICO was spinning so hard they caused their own tornado. In their usual style of stupid journalism (I really don’t know why I’m so surprised by this), the publication managed to take some historic political news and turn it on its head.
In an article entitled “New poll shows how Trump surged with women and Hispanics — and lost anyway” about a recent extensive investigation by the Pew Research Center into the 2020 election, POLITICO – which actually has politics in its name – proved it has no clue how to write about politics.
The investigation, as Pew notes is “a new analysis of validated 2020 voters from Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel examines change and continuity in the electorate, both of which contributed to Biden’s victory.”
Joe Biden won an historic election by more than 8 million votes. So naturally POLITICO spun the research as a resounding victory for Donald Trump, even though he actually lost the election. The research noted that Trump gained ground with white women and Hispanics in 2020.
“Every piece of evidence since the November election suggests Donald Trump made significant inroads among blocs of voters thought to be out of reach to the controversial now-former president,” POLITICO says.
Apparently they didn’t actually read the research because Pew had this to say about that: “Overall, there were shifts in presidential candidate support among some key groups between 2016 and 2020, notably suburban voters and independents. On balance, these shifts helped Biden a little more than Trump.”
On gaining ground with Hispanics, POLITICO had this stupid take: “But Biden only won Hispanic voters by 21 points, 59 percent to 38 percent, down significantly from Clinton’s 38-point advantage, 66 percent to 28 percent. There was a slight gender gap — Biden won Hispanic men by 17 and Hispanic women by 24 — but Trump surged broadly among Hispanics, especially among Hispanic voters without a college degree.”
Biden only won Hispanics by 21 points. Like that’s not significant. He only got 21 points more than his opponent. If I’m not mistaken, if you get 21 points more than your opponent, you’re usually considered the winner.
But not with POLITICO, which never fails to fall back onto a typical political journalism ploy, comparing apples to oranges. Under the guise of comparing the 2016 election to the 2020 election, Biden’s victory among Hispanics is not as significant because Hillary Clinton won the group by 38 points. So, therefore, Trump victory.
One of my pet peeves of political journalism is comparing separate elections percentage point by percentage point. Just because Clinton won Hispanics by 38 points means Biden’s only 21 point victory is a worrisome trend.
But this discounts all the variables that come into play in polls. Not to mention the fact that polls by themselves are notoriously troublesome. The 2016 election is not the 2020 election. The world changed significantly in those four years. Hillary Clinton is a woman. Joe Biden is a man. Demographics shift all the time – and four years is an eternity in politics. There was no pandemic in 2016. And on and on.
POLITICO notes “…the Pew report suggests those gains could be fleeting: While Trump narrowed his loss among Hispanic voters between 2016 and 2020, Democrats won them in 2018 House races by their widest margin, 47 points.”
Kudos to them for actually acknowledging that the Pew research states that these numbers may not last. And that their analysis is flawed. But, they buried this information in the ninth paragraph of a 16 paragraph story.
In the version of the research POLITICO was reading, they came away with this conclusion: “And despite the rise in turnout, the historical trends of who voted and who didn’t persisted. Voters were more likely to be older, more Republican, and white. Younger voters, Democrats and nonwhites made up larger shares of the group that didn’t turn out in 2020, in line with long-term trends.”
How they came to this conclusion is beyond me. Because the Pew research says the exact opposite.
“Biden and Trump benefited from similar levels of party loyalty in 2020, with Trump receiving 92% support among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and Biden getting 94% among Democrats and Democratic leaners,” the Pew report noted. “Comparable levels of support for each candidate were seen among Democrats (95% for Biden) and Republicans (94% for Trump), not including leaners. Among independents and those who affiliated with other parties, Biden led Trump by 52%-43%.”
The research also notes that younger voters – Gen Z and Millennials in particular – favored Joe Biden by 20 points. But according to POLITICO, they didn’t turn out in 2020.
Which makes Biden’s win even more historic. He actually won an election where no one came out to vote for him.