An NBC News poll this week found that Vice President Kamala Harris' approval ratings had mysteriously increased since she entered the presidential race in July, and political commentators are questioning why. I am doing it.
Before Harris entered the race, she had the lowest net negative rating (-17) for a vice president in U.S. history. her approval evaluation In January 2024, it was just 28%, but it had only improved to 32% in July, when President Joe Biden left office. Harris' approval rating currently stands at 48%, an increase of 16 points in just two months.
“What's changed?” Greg Price, Digital Strategist asked This week on X. “It's a media report.”
“The media apparatus has run out of control, and too many people in America still think the news is real,” Price said. “Nothing has changed about Kamala Harris.”
Harris has refused to change many of the radical positions she advocated in 2019, including supporting reparations, legalizing prostitution and amnesty for illegal aliens. And just like before entering the race, Harris has made gaffes, meandering answers to simple questions about securing the southern border or improving the economy, and offering word salad. Masu.
Despite her performance, Harris' approval ratings have surprisingly improved, reflecting the shift in establishment media coverage of the vice president. For example, in 2021, the media extensively reported on “friction,” “internal tension,” and “anxiety” within the vice president's office. The newspaper reported on a history of “employee abuse and dissent” dating back to his time as a senator.
A staff member said the aides were “thrown from top to bottom of the bus, with short fuses, and in poor conditions.'' said politiko In 2021. “This is not a healthy environment and people often feel mistreated. It's not a place where people feel supported, it's a place where people feel treated like themselves. .”
Media coverage was so thorough that some Democrats began to doubt Harris' political viability. She is “messed up” and “should not be her legal successor” in the 2024 presidential election because she probably “cannot defeat someone the Republican Party is running,” Democratic operatives declared. Axios' Margaret Talef and Jonathan Swan.
Media also reported that a number of staff members had fled Harris' office. “Exhausted by the entrenched dysfunction and lack of focus, key Western aides have largely abandoned Vice President Kamala Harris and her staff, deciding they don't have time to deal with them now.” said CNN. Looking back in 2022.
But media elites appear to have changed their coverage as soon as Harris entered the race, making a 180-degree turn as some Republicans expected at the time. “Harris is transforming from national punchline to rock star.” national reviewNoah Rothman reported In August. “[T]Journalists' determination to hone Harris' opinion is working in Democrats' favor. ”
A Media Research Center study found in August that television networks had provided 84% of “positive coverage” to Harris since she entered the race, compared to former Donald Trump. 89% of the reports were negative about the president.
ABC News program for Trump vs. Harris debate tonight's world news According to a survey by the Media Research Center (MRC), while coverage of President Trump was generally negative, there was an overall positive view of Harris. After the debate, Democratic supporters in the establishment media praised the lopsided performance of ABC News debate hosts David Muir and Lindsey Davis. “Let me be clear: ABC's hosts have exceeded expectations,” said Jennifer Rubin, the show's “Democratic” opinion writer. washington post.
Changes in media coverage will not go unnoticed by voters. According to a 2023 poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, six in 10 Americans say establishment media is to blame for misinformation. About three in four Americans say the media is to blame for polarization, and just under half of them say the media is to blame. The people sampled have little or no trust in the accuracy or fairness of media reporting.
More on media bias against Harris here.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter for Breitbart News and a former RNC war room analyst. he is the author of politics of slave morality. Follow Wendell “×” @WendellHusebø or society of truth @WendellHusebo.
