Us Election 2020: We Put Republicans And Democrats In A Group Chat
It started off cordially.
As Americans went to the polls, we put 12 Biden voters and 13 Trump voters in a group chat for a virtual watch party.
The Democrats , Republicans and Independents all agreed that this election campaign has been “the race that never ends”. But then the results started to come in, and tensions flared.
Indiana goes to Trump
Within minutes of the first polls closing, Indiana was called for President Donald Trump.
Momentum builds among Republicans
The text group started buzzing when Mr Trump took the lead in Florida. But not everyone shared the happiness.
Eyes turn to states in the upper Midwest
As the polls closed in Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin – states which Mr Trump took in 2016 – the races were all too close to call.
Andrew, an independent voter from Michigan who was undecided until the last minute and ultimately cast a vote for Biden, said he thought the president would lose in there.
Trump momentum sends Democrats to bed
Then a “red wave” of projections suggested wins for Republicans across the southern US.
Republicans in the chat shared photos of their watch parties, including one voter, Eliana, who said she was at a party indoors with 500 people.
The conversation that followed a few of the networks projecting Florida for Trump sent some weary and frustrated Democrats to bed.
Biden speaks, Trump tweets
The two candidates then told supporters that the fight would go on into Wednesday.
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Compulsory Reductions In Meat Consumption
In April 2021, at least five Fox News and Fox Business personalities amplified a story published by the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, that incorrectly linked a university study to President Joe Biden’s climate change agenda, to falsely assert that Americans would be compelled to dramatically reduce their meat consumption to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions caused by . Fox News aired a graphic detailing the supposed compulsory reductions, falsely indicating the information came from the Agriculture Department, which numerous Republican politicians and commentators tweeted. Fox News anchor John Roberts reported, “say goodbye to your burgers if you want to sign up to the Biden climate agenda.” Days later, Roberts acknowledged on air that the story was false.
As Trump Separates From Fox News What’s Next For Both
As supporters of President Donald Trump gathered around the country in the past week to protest the election, a surprising chant could occasionally be heard: “Fox News sucks.”
The network has held a central role during Trump’s presidency, regularly hosting him on its various shows and featuring a slate of commentators who vociferously defend him. But that relationship began to show signs of strain in recent months, culminating in outright hostility from Trump after Fox News and The Associated Press became the first major media outlets to announce that former Vice President Joe Biden had won Arizona in the presidential race.
On Thursday, Trump took his anger at Fox News even further, claiming the network’s ratings had “collapsed,” which is untrue. On election night, ratings data from Nielsen showed that Fox News averaged 14.1 million viewers from 8-11 p.m. ET, a record for cable news coverage of a presidential election.
“Very sad to watch this happen,” Trump tweeted, “but they forgot what made them successful, what got them there. They forgot the Golden Goose.”
With Biden as president-elect, Fox News’ relationship with Trump and conservative America is at a crossroads. The conservative media landscape is far broader today than it was four years ago, and the rival networks that proliferated during Trump’s presidency could be eager to take on Fox News — possibly in concert with Trump. But any predictions of Fox News’ demise would be premature.
Coverage Of Russia Investigation
On October 30, 2017, when special counsel Robert Mueller indicted Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and revealed George Papadopoulos had plead guilty , this was the focus of most media’s coverage, except Fox News’. Hosts and guests on Fox News called for Mueller to be fired. Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson focused their shows on unsubstantiated allegations that Clinton sold uranium to Russia in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation and on the Clinton campaign’s role in funding the Donald Trump–Russia dossier. Hannity asserted: “The very thing they are accusing President Trump of doing, they did it themselves.” During the segment, Hannity mistakenly referred to Clinton as President Clinton. Fox News dedicated extensive coverage to the uranium story, which Democrats said was an attempt to distract from Mueller’s intensifying investigation. CNN described the coverage as “a tour de force in deflection and dismissal”. On October 31, CNN reported Fox News employees were dissatisfied with their outlet’s coverage of the Russia investigation, with employees calling it an “embarrassment”, “laughable” and saying it “does the viewer a huge disservice and further divides the country” and that it is “another blow to journalists at Fox who come in every day wanting to cover the news in a fair and objective way”.
In 2020 The News Sources For Republicans And Democrats Were Very Different
In 2020, Pew Research found the news diet among Republicans and Democrats varied greatly. The lone … exception was on broadcast TV.
Last week the Pew Research Center released an American News Pathways project entitled; How Americans Navigate the News in 2020: A Tumultuous Year in Review. According to Pew, the purpose was to understand how Americans interacted with the news and information throughout the 2020, focusing on the pandemic and election. The data came from a yearlong undertaking consisting of ten separate surveys each with 9,000 or more U.S. adults, from November 2019 through December 2020.
It’s well known the political opinions of Americans has become more polarized, this has been reflected with their news sources. Pew found those Americans who identify themselves as Republican or as an independent that lean Republican often had a different news source, than Democrats or independent leaning Democrats. To some degree, the one common news source was the network TV newscasts. Even Republicans were divided among themselves, those that followed Donald Trump for news and information had a different viewpoint on the pandemic and election than those Republicans that didn’t follow Trump. Adding to all this was the prevalence of unproven news stories especially on social media. To say the least, 2020 was a raucous and unprecedented year for news. Here are some of the findings.
Poll: 78% Of Gop Fox News Viewers Say Trump Is Best President Ever
A new survey of the network’s watchers reveal the hard core of the Republican Party and how hopeless it is for Democrats to try and court them.
Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast/Getty
Almost 8 in 10 Republicans who watch Fox News say Donald Trump is the most successful president in history.
That was just one finding of a new poll showing the deep ideological divide between Fox News viewers and everyone else. The poll results were provided to The Daily Beast by Navigator, a project launched by Democratic groups Global Strategy Group and GBA strategies. They surveyed more than 1,000 registered voters online with the goal of examining the differences in views between Fox News viewers and non-Fox viewers.
It comes after Democratic strategists have whether candidates and officeholders should appear on Trump’s favorite cable news channel to win over its regular viewers. Candidates like Sen. Amy Klobuchar have deliberately made efforts to speak to Fox News viewers, and the Democratic National Committee briefly entertained the idea of hosting a debate on Fox News before deciding against it.
But Thursday’s survey shows why many in the party have largely written off the network’s viewers as a lost cause.
The survey’s authors argue that the network presents an “alternate reality” in American politics, and plays an “outsized role in the way many experience and form opinions on the most important issues facing the country.”
How The Study Works
The coolest thing about this research is the methodology. It’s really hard to estimate the effects of media outlets on individuals’ behavior, as media consumption is a two-way street. Yes, media can change peoples’ opinions and behavior, but people also choose to consume particular media because it aligns with their opinions and affirms stuff they’re doing already.
And prior economic research on media bias has found that media outlets’ political stances are demand-driven: that is, they take the positions they do because they want to gain readers/listeners/viewers. In this interpretation, Fox News might just be producing segments depicting food stamp recipients as lazy lobster-eating surfers because their audience already hates food stamps and welfare programs and wants something with which to agree. Confirmation bias is a hell of a drug.
So figuring out that a given media outlet is changing viewers’ minds, rather than merely reflecting their viewpoints back to them, is tricky. But Martin and Yurukoglu figured out an ingenious way around that problem: channel ordering.
Especially combined with the prior, also rigorous research looking at Fox’s initial rollout, Martin and Yurukoglu’s paper provides powerful evidence that Fox News is a critically important actor in American politics. It’s doing more than serving a market need; it’s actively reshaping American public opinion.
A New Survey Reveals How Political Leanings Affect Our Tv Preferences For Starters Liberals Love Letterman And Conservatives Prefer Leno
“Americans’ partisan preferences don’t end with their thoughts on how to fix the economy,” says Lucy Madison at CBS News. Democrats and Republicans have very different TV viewing habits, too. The specifics are outlined in a new survey from consumer researcher firm Experian-Simmons, which prepared the report for Entertainment Weekly. Here, four lessons about the relationship between politics and the boob tube:
1. There’s a late-night partisan divideThe Dave Letterman-Jay Leno rivalry has gotten political. The survey reveals that Democrats prefer watching The Late Show with David Letterman, while Republicans favor The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. And the differences are polarizing, says Madison. “Not infrequently, a show beloved by one party is reviled by the other.” Case in point: The Daily Show and The Colbert Report topped liberals’ list of favorites, but are among conservatives’ least favorite shows.
2. The differences in comedy tastes reinforce stereotypes“Literate media-savvy comedies” that rely on “sarcastic humor,” like 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation, score high with Democrats, Experian-Simmons senior marketing manager John Fetto tells Entertainment Weekly. On the other hand, more traditional comedies, like ABC’s The Middle, are popular with Republicans. Not appearing on either party’s list of faves? Two and a Half Men. “Just who are the 20 million people watching that crap every week?” says Brian Moylan at Gawker.
Republican Vs Democrat Survey: Who Watches The Best Tv Shows
Republicans don’t watch MTV’s Jersey Shore. But they dig ABC’s Castle.
Democrats don’t like Discovery’s Deadliest Catch. But they swoon for NBC’s Parks and Recreation.
Those are a few of the findings from an annual research survey by that measures the consumer preferences of various political ideologies. In a report prepared exclusively for EW, the company calculated some of the favorite — and least favorite — TV shows of political partisans.
In the findings, “sarcastic” media-savvy comedies and morally murky antiheroes tend to draw Dems. While serious work-centered shows , along with reality competitions, tend to draw conservatives.
Focusing on well-known cable and broadcast original entertainment series , here’s who wins the 2011 prime-time primaries:
LIBERAL-DEMOCRAT FAVORITES:
—The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report : As you might expect.
—30 Rock and Parks and Recreation : Literate media-savvy comedies score high among Dems in general, notes Experian-Simmons senior marketing manager John Fetto. “Sarcastic humor is always a hook for them,” he adds.
—The View : Shows that skew female tend to do better among Dems, while male-friendly shows tend to do perform higher among Republicans.
—Glee
—Modern Family : Last year, the progressive Glee and Modern Family scored surprisingly strong among both political leanings. Among conservatives this year, the shows still do fairly well, but have dropped out of their top ranks.
—It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
What The Best 2020 Post
Some of the most substantial daylight we observed between Fox News Republicans and far-right news Republicans was on their beliefs around conspiracy theories — especially the core beliefs of QAnon. Overall, 23 percent of Republicans mostly or completely agree with the core QAnon tenet that “the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.” But Republicans who trust mainstream news sources or Fox News were actually the least likely to believe in the main QAnon conspiracy theory, with just 19 percent and 17 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, Republicans who don’t watch television news, which notably includes those who get news solely from online sources, were considerably more likely to believe in a system run by Satanist pedophiles . But by far, the Republicans who were most likely to believe in QAnon were those who trusted far-right news sources .
related:Why Being ‘Anti-Media’ Is Now Part Of The GOP Identity Read more. »
Media preferences don’t explain all the differences we see among Republicans; as noted, on the question of the “Big Lie,” Fox News Republicans are very much not in sync with Republicans who get their news from mainstream news outlets, even if they do hold this belief less strongly than Republicans who get their news from far-right outlets.
The Difference Between Which News Outlets Republicans And Democrats Trust
Americans are divided by political party on which news sources they trust, according to the latest Economist/YouGov Poll.
Most Republicans trust Fox News, the only news organization to receive a majority of GOP support in the survey. One-third of Republicans trust The Wall Street Journal, while one-third are neutral on whether the newspaper is trustworthy. A quarter of Republicans trust One America News Network, a conservative broadcast organization that has been elevated by President Donald Trump and the White House in recent months.
Trump has promoted OANN as a “great alternative” to Fox News — though, OANN hasn’t usurped the media giant among Republicans overall. About one-third of Fox News viewers trust OANN, compared to 15 percent of Americans overall. OANN is frequently criticized for spreading disproven conspiracy theories and misinformation that President Trump has re-circulated on his Twitter account.
Despite this, OANN remains more trusted among Republicans than The Washington Post , The New York Times , CNN , and MSNBC . A majority of Republicans actively distrust CNN , MSNBC , and The New York Times — each of which are outlets that have received frequent attacks and threats from the president for not providing favorable coverage to his administration.
Two-thirds of Democrats actively distrust Fox News, while 14 percent trust the network. About half of Democrats remain neutral on OANN, though about two in five consider it untrustworthy.
Image: Getty
Democrats And Republicans Split On Political Content On Late Night But Jimmy Fallon Is Americas Favorite Host
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58% of the public has a favorable opinion of Jimmy Fallon, and 55% have a favorable opinion of “The Tonight Show.”
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62% of Republicans don’t like when late-night hosts discuss politics, while an equal share of Democrats do.
As Stephen Colbert’s more political “Late Show” begins to top Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show” in the ratings, new polling shows Democrats and Republicans almost diametrically opposed on their views of late-night political content, indicating that it might be difficult for networks to find a late-night show to please all audiences.
The March 7-10 Morning Consult/The Hollywood Reporter found that Fallon was the fan favorite among 2,201 adults, having the highest favorability at 58 percent. Fallon was also the most popular late-night host among Republicans, with 48 percent viewing him favorably, and the second-most popular among Democrats, coming in 1 percentage point behind Jimmy Kimmel of “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” who had a favorability of 73 percent. The margin of error for the Democratic subsample was 3 percentage points, and the margin of error for the Republican subsample was 4 percentage points.
Fallon’s “Tonight Show” had the highest share of talk-show favorability among the public , as well as among Democrats and Republicans .
Report That Biden Administration Was Building Trump Wall
According to analysis by Media Matters, on May 12, 2021, Fox News reported on its website, “Border lie — Biden resumes border wall construction after promising to halt it.” Correspondent Bill Melugin then appeared on Special Report with Bret Baier to report “the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is actually going to be restarting border wall construction down in the Rio Grande Valley” after “a lot of blowback and pressure from local residents and local politicians.” After the Corps of Engineers tweeted a clarification, Melugin deleted a tweet about the story and tweeted an “update” clarifying that a levee wall was being constructed to mitigate damage to flood control systems caused by uncompleted wall construction, and the website story headline was changed to “Biden administration to resume border wall levee construction as crisis worsens.” Later on Fox News Primetime, host Brian Kilmeade briefly noted the levee but commented to former Trump advisor Stephen Miller, “They’re going to restart building the wall again, Stephen.” Fox News host Sean Hannity later broadcast the original Melugin story without any mention of the levee.
Americans Use Of A News Outlet Does Not Always Mean They Trust It
Even as Republicans and Democrats sort themselves into different news universes, there are a few sources that are used by large numbers on both sides.
A deeper analysis reveals, however, that getting political news from a source does not always mean one trusts it. Indeed, some people report getting news from sources they also say they distrust. This is particularly true among Republicans. For example, among the 24% of Republicans who said they got political and election news from CNN in the last week, about four-in-ten say they distrust CNN. Conversely, among the 53% of Democrats who use CNN, just 4% distrust it.
Similarly, for each of the three major commercial broadcast networks, about two-in-ten Republicans who got political news from these outlets in the past week also say they distrust that source .
And while relatively small numbers of Republicans got news from MSNBC , The New York Times and The Washington Post in the past week, of those who did, 45% distrust The Washington Post, 38% distrust The New York Times and 37% distrust MSNBC.
For Democrats, the data tells a different story. With one exception, few Democrats say they got news in the past week from sources they distrust. The exception is Fox News. Nearly one-quarter of Democrats got news there in the past week. And of those who did, 27% say they do not trust the cable channel as a source of information about the election and politics.
Lebron James Net Worth Revealed And Spoiler Hes Not A Billionaire
In the survey, Pew also looked at the affect former President Donald Trump had on Republicans as a news source with the pandemic and election. About 30% of Republicans had used Trump as their primary source for the two top news events. The Republicans that relied on Trump had a different perspective than those Republicans that didn’t.
Two takeaways on the impact of Trump were:
· Republicans that had relied on Trump for COVID-19 news followed the pandemic and Presidential task force more closely than other Republicans. They were more likely to say the pandemic was overblown and the media covered it poorly. In September 2020, 89% of Republicans that depended on Trump for news on COVID-19 thought the U.S. had controlled the pandemic as well as it could, compared to 59% for the other Republicans. That 30% difference continued into November.
Those respondents who relied primarily on social media for news, knew less about current events and more familiar with false claims and unconfirmed stories about the pandemic and election. According to Pew, 18% of Americans received most of their political news on social media, a percentage greater than local TV at 16%, cable TV at 16%, network TV at 13% and radio at 8% . Moreover, those Americans that relied on social media for news, did not follow the pandemic and election as closely.
The Tucker Carlson Fans Who Got Vaxxed
I asked vaccinated fans of the Fox News host what it will take to get more Republicans to get their shots.
Late last month, as the Delta variant of the coronavirus filled hospitals across the under-vaccinated South, Tucker Carlson took to his usual perch as the most-watched host on the most-watched cable-news network, just asking questions about the COVID-19 vaccines. “Tonight, congressional Democrats have called for a vaccine mandate in Congress,” Carlson said, as if flabbergasted by every word. “Members and staffers would be required to get a shot that the CDC told us today doesn’t work very well and, by the way, whose long-term effects cannot be known.”
Carlson’s Facebook followers commented eagerly on the video clip, spreading unfounded fears about vaccination among themselves. “Completely disappointed in our government, don’t believe a word they speak! Will not get the shot!” one person . Together, Carlson and his viewers are a placenta and embryo, gestating dangerous ideas and keeping the pandemic alive.
It’s no secret that Carlson’s audience, and Fox’s, are overwhelmingly Republican and right-wing. And in after , Republicans are much less likely than Democrats to say they have been vaccinated and much more likely to say they definitely won’t be vaccinated. The partisan gap in vaccinations has only grown over time.
Republicans Migrate To Fox
To some extent, these patterns reflect the migration of Republicans toward the Fox News Channel and away from other TV news sources. Between 1998 and 2008, the share of Republicans saying they regularly watch Fox News rose 22 points, from 14% to 36%. Meanwhile, the share who regularly watch network evening news fell 15 points and the share who regularly watch CNN declined by eight points.
There also has been movement in the regular viewing habits of Democrats. The share of Democrats who regularly watch CNN increased from 25% to 33% between 1998 and 2008, and the share of Democrats who regularly watch MSNBC increased from 10% to 18%. Notably, the share of Democrats who say they regularly watch the Fox News Channel has remained largely unchanged over the past decade .
From 1998 through 2002 there was little difference in the share of Democrats and Republicans using these sources regularly. But in 2004, Republicans moved sharply away from CNN and toward the Fox News Channel. In the 2008 survey, 33% of Democrats regularly watched CNN compared with 17% of Republicans, while 36% of Republicans and 21% of Democrats regularly watched Fox News.
Americans Are Divided By Party In The Sources They Turn To For Political News
Mark JurkowitzAmy MitchellElisa ShearerMason Walker
To a large degree, the pattern of partisan polarization that emerges in attitudes about the credibility of news sources is also evident in the sources that Republicans and Democrats rely on for news about politics and the election.
Overall, Republicans get political and election news from a smaller group of sources than Democrats, with an overwhelming reliance on one source – Fox News. Democrats , on the other hand, use a wider range of sources.
Six-in-ten Republicans say they got news from the Fox News cable network in the past week. After Fox News, there is a huge gap before the next most turned-to sources – ABC News, NBC News and CBS News, all at similar levels .
Despite Republicans’ deep distrust of CNN, it is among the more commonly used sources among Republicans, with 24% who got political news there in the past week. Next come the radio shows of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh . No other source tops 15% among Republicans.
On the Democratic side, CNN is turned to by the greatest portion, with 53% saying they got political news there in the past week. As is the case with Republicans, the three major commercial broadcast networks are the next most turned to sources of political news for Democrats, albeit in bigger doses — NBC , ABC and CBS .
