Month: November 2014

Exit Polling Asked South Carolina Voters Whether Blacks Were ‘Too Demanding’ and ‘Trying Hard Enough’

Jon Ponder

WSPA.com

In an article on its website with the rather oblique title, “Exit Poll Angers Some SC Voters,” (meaning others were simply delighted by it?), WSPA television in Spartanburg, S.C., reported that questions in exit polling after the midterm elections Tuesday were framed to elicit racist responses.

Voters were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with statements like:

    screenshot-racist-questions-sc-exit-poll

  • “Over the past few years, blacks have gotten less than they deserve.”
  • “Blacks are getting too demanding in their push for equal rights.”
  • “It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder, they could be as well off as whites.”

One shocked liberal voter demanded to know who had authorized the questions. Amber Lange, who said she worked for Clemson University, was surprised to learn the questions were written by a Clemson professor:

[…]

Fox News Also Won the Midterms

Buck Banks

6,607,000

Number of total viewers of Fox News Channel in the 10 pm hour Tuesday night, exceeding both CNN’s 1,936,000 and MSNBC’s 1,594,000 average total viewers combined by more than 3 million. FNC also beat out CBS, NBC and ABC in total viewers during that hour, with the highest of the three – CBS – garnering 5,408,000 average total viewers, reports FishBowl DC.

Midterms Don’t Predict What 2016 Will Bring

Buck Banks

Historically, midterm results, which are typically unfavorable to the president’s party, tell us relatively little about the coming presidential election… The record shows that the president’s party can rebound from major losses to win at the polls in two years. Bill Clinton, for instance, bounced back from the 1994 Republican landslide to easily win re-election in 1996. Similarly, President Obama, whose party suffered major losses in 2010, went on to defeat Mitt Romney in 2012, and George Bush won the 1988 election after Republicans suffered major losses in 1986, President Reagan’s sixth year in office.

— Brendan Nyhan writes in the New York Times.