The media can’t help but pay attention to startling new Biden-Trump polls

OK, we’re not going to do it. We’re not going to get caught up in the horse race coverage of the 2024 presidential election like we did in past elections.

We’re going to ignore the polls for now. That’s what the media says. We’re going to focus on policy and issues and we’re going to ignore the polls.

Then a poll comes out with numbers so striking that they are impossible to ignore.

That’s what happened Monday when a poll came out that had the media buzzing — even if some of the buzz was to not get caught up in the buzz.

Surveys by The New York Times, Siena College and The Philadelphia Inquirer found that Donald Trump was ahead among registered voters against President Joe Biden in five of the six states that could very well determine the 2024 election: Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania. The lone battleground state where Biden led among registered voters was Wisconsin.

What’s even more pronounced is how heavy some of the numbers are in Trump’s favor. Trump was up seven points in Arizona and Michigan, 10 points in Georgia and a whopping 12 points in Nevada.

Nate Cohn, the chief political analyst for The New York Times, wrote, “The race was closer among likely voters. Mr. Trump led in five states as well, but Mr. Biden edged ahead in Michigan while trailing only narrowly in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. While Mr. Biden won all six of those states in 2020, victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin would be enough for him to win re-election, provided he won everywhere else he did four years ago.”

Cohn points out that these numbers are largely unchanged since last November. Yet since then, Cohn notes, “… the stock market has gained 25 percent, Mr. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan has started, and the Biden campaign has unleashed tens of millions of dollars in advertisements across the battleground states. The polls offer little indication that any of these developments have helped Mr. Biden, hurt Mr. Trump or quelled the electorate’s discontent. Instead, the surveys show that the cost of living, immigration, Israel’s war in Gaza and a desire for change continue to be a drag on the president’s standing.”

So, the next question is, naturally, do these polls matter and should the media pay attention to them, especially when you throw in the margin of error in some of the states that are close?

Biden’s camp, of course, says no. Geoff Garin, a pollster for the Biden campaign, released a statement saying, “Drawing broad conclusions about the race based on results from one poll is a mistake. The reality is that many voters are not paying close attention to the election and have not started making up their minds — a dynamic also reflected in today’s poll. These voters will decide this election and only the Biden campaign is doing the work to win them over.”

Talking on his “Morning Joe” show on MSNBC, Joe Scarborough said, “The New York Times-Siena poll traditionally has consistently slanted toward Donald Trump. And what’s so funny is, the Times will release their polls, liberals will run around with their hair on fire for about a month. And then like three days later polls will come out that will show a deadlocked race.”

Perhaps, although the Times’ Frank Bruni, talking about the Democrats’ optimism, writes, “I can’t help worrying that such hopefulness verges on magical thinking and is midwife to a confidence, even a complacency, that Biden cannot afford. He needs to step things up — to defend his record more vigorously, make the case for his second term more concretely, project more strength and more effectively communicate the most important difference between him and his opponent: Biden genuinely loves America, while Trump genuinely loves only himself.”

Yes, we’re still six months away from the election. So much could happen — here and abroad — between now and then.

Still.

According to The Hill’s Nick Robertson, CNN’s Van Jones said, “It should be a wake-up call. Young people are upset. And it’s not just the situation in Gaza — the economic prospects for young people are miserable.”

In the NBC News politics newsletter, Mark Murray wrote the surveys  “highlight what appears to be Biden's much narrower path to win the necessary 270 electoral votes.”

The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake wrote that “Monday brought a reality check on the difficult path to reelection (Biden) still faces.” Blake, however, believes Biden can turn it around, writing, “Biden simply isn’t winning the voters he should. And while there are signs he could turn it around, there’s little margin for error.”

And little chance that such numbers can’t be ignored, even if the election is still far down the track.

A MESSAGE FROM POYNTER

New help for journalists facing uncooperative sources

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Read: “Shut Out: Strategies for good journalism when sources dismiss the press”

We’ll also be hosting a LinkedIn Live at 4 p.m. May 16 to talk more about this dynamic and hear your thoughts. Join us!

Upon further review

Judd Legum has a newsletter on Substack called Popular Information. He describes the newsletter as “independent accountability journalism” and himself as “progressive.” He also used to work for Hillary Clinton.

However, he still has what comes off as a pretty level-headed piece — called “The real cancel culture” — which looks back at the whole incident of NPR editor Uri Berliner leaving the company after writing a scathing piece accusing NPR of losing the public’s trust with unbalanced coverage, among other things. Legum also writes a little about the Bari Weiss outlet that published Berliner’s piece. Weiss was an editor and writer at The New York Times until resigning in 2020 because she felt she was bullied by colleagues who disagreed with her viewpoints.

Legum writes, “In January 2021, Weiss launched a newsletter, Common Sense, with her partner, Nellie Bowles. Weiss billed Common Sense (now The Free Press) as the antidote to ‘cancel culture,’ which she argued was the practice by progressives of seeking to punish and ostracize anyone who diverged from their ideological orthodoxy.”

However, Legum later adds, “Ironically, as Weiss cashes in on her critique of ‘cancel culture,’ The Free Press has become a central part of a sophisticated right-wing ecosystem that seeks to tear down anything and anyone who diverges too far from their ideology.”

I just cherry-picked a couple of passages, so read the whole thing. It’s interesting.

When will he learn?

To paraphrase a popular saying these days, Rudy ​​Giuliani messed around and found out. He has been suspended from radio station WABC in New York City and his show was canceled because he can’t stop talking about how he believes the 2020 election was rigged.

John Catsimatidis, the billionaire Republican businessman who owns the station, apparently warned Giuliani time and time again, and Rudy just couldn’t help himself.

Catsimatidis told The New York Times’ Nicholas Fandos, “We’re not going to talk about fallacies of the November 2020 election. We warned him once. We warned him twice. And I get a text from him last night, and I get a text from him this morning that he refuses not to talk about it. So, he left me no option. I suspended him.”

Fandos wrote, “Mr. Giuliani’s removal from WABC, one of his only current sources of income, is almost certain to add to the mounting legal and financial woes that have engulfed him in the years since. The suspension will deny him one of his last mainstream public platforms.”

CNN’s Liam Reilly wrote, “Giuliani has also been criminally charged in Georgia and Arizona over lies related to overturning the 2020 presidential election. Catsimatidis told CNN that he learned from a New York Post article that the former mayor is also being paid by Newsmax, ‘which is trying to make a case against us with Dominion.’”

Catsimatidis told Reilly, “I won’t jeopardize WABC over stupid things like that.”

In a statement, Giuliani said WABC’s policies were “a clear violation of free speech.” He told Fandos that he was unaware WABC had any policies stating he could not talk about the 2020 election, adding, “Obviously I was never informed on such a policy, and even if there was one, it was violated so often that it couldn’t be taken seriously.”

Apparently, someone took it seriously.

Standing ovation

Benjamin Hall, the Fox News correspondent who was badly injured while covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine, got a standing ovation when he appeared at the Fox Upfront presentation on Monday in New York City.

Hall’s colleagues — cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and journalist Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova — were both killed by the missiles that exploded near them in March 2022. Hall lost his right leg below the knee and much of his left foot, as well as his left thumb. He also lost sight in his left eye and was burned over much of his body.

Hall told the audience on Monday, “The truth is, I’m here because of the community around me. I’m here because of everyone at Fox. I’m here because of the amazing people who come together. But look, my story is just one of many that’s coming from the frontlines of war. But that makes the mission and the need to report on these events even more pressing.”

Don’t mess with Judge Judy

“Judge Judy” Sheindlin is suing the parent company of the National Enquirer and InTouch Weekly over a story that she says falsely claimed she was trying to help the Menéndez brothers get a retrial after they were convicted of murdering their parents.

The Associated Press reports the suit was filed in Collier County, Florida. Sheindlin claims the first story was on April 10 on InTouch Weekly’s website. The headline was “Inside Judge Judy’s Quest to Save the Menendez Brothers Nearly 35 Years After Their Parents’ Murder.” The National Enquirer then picked up a version of that story. Both are owned by Accelerate360 Media.

The AP story said, “Her lawsuit speculated that the news outlets used statements in a Fox Nation docuseries made by ‘Judi Ramos,’ a woman identified as an alternate juror in the first Menendez trial, and misattributed them to the television judge.”

In a statement, Sheindlin said, “When you fabricate stories about me in order to make money for yourselves with no regard for the truth or the reputation I’ve spent a lifetime cultivating, it’s going to cost you. When you’ve done it multiple times, it’s unconscionable and will be expensive. It has to be expensive so that you will stop.”

However, Sheindlin did not ask for a certain dollar amount.

Lining up

NBC picked up another NFL game for the upcoming season and it will be an interesting matchup. Not between one team and another. The matchup will be between the NFL and the college football playoffs.

The game NBC is picking up will be played on Dec. 21 — the same day when the first round of the newly expanded College Football Playoff will have a triple header. The NFL game will not only be shown on NBC, but also on Peacock and Telemundo.

There were reports that the NFL asked the College Football Playoff to play two games instead of three on that day, but the CFP is sticking with three.

Sports Media Watch’s Jon Lewis wrote, “It should be noted that the December 21 matchups figure to include higher-profile teams than usual. The NFL teams playing on Christmas this year — which falls on a Wednesday, a day of the week when NFL games are rarely played — will have played their previous game on that Saturday. Assuming the NFL will schedule its top-tier teams for its Christmas doubleheader, the December 21 games figure to feature some of the biggest draws in the league.”

We will find out which teams will play later this week. The NFL schedule is set to be released Wednesday.

However …

One game on the NFL schedule was announced Monday. Fox Sports announced that Tom Brady will make his regular-season broadcast debut calling the Dallas Cowboys vs. the Cleveland Browns in week one.

Media tidbits

• The New York Times’ Michael M. Grynbaum with “Play-by-Play and Drawings on an iPad: How Cable TV Covers a TV-Less Trial.”
• The Athletic’s Zak Keefer remembers the late legendary NFL reporter in “Remembering ESPN’s Chris Mortensen, who changed how the NFL is covered.”
• Front Office Sports’ A.J. Perez with “‘Deadspin’ to Launch for Third Time With Mysterious Owners, Unclear Staff.”
• Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen recently announced that he will soon step down after 40 years. Here’s a Q&A he did with the Mercer Island Reporter’s John Hamer. They talk about the future of newspapers, and Blethen says it’s “too pessimistic” to say print newspapers will be gone within a few years, adding, “It’s a possibility, but there probably will always be some community newspapers or newsletters. We’ve always put a premium on home delivery. Many people still want that. I love print. It may go away sometime, but not yet.”

Hot type

• The New Yorker’s Rachel Aviv with “A British Nurse Was Found Guilty of Killing Seven Babies. Did She Do It?”

More resources for journalists

• Got a story you’d like to write for Poynter? Email [email protected] with your idea, approximate timeline and word count.
• Beat Academy offers eight trainings for one low price.
• Work-Life Chemistry six-week newsletter course: Ditch work-life balance for a more sustainable approach.
• June’s Lead with Influence is for women and nonbinary leaders.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].