TRUMP DEMOCRATS

Ken Berwitz


For months, I have been asking why media are not running polls which ask what the crossover vote would be if the general election pitted donald trump against Hillary Clinton.  And with rare exceptions (click here to see my blog about one of them), that has not been done.

Why not?  

If trump, who most people – me included – thought would be little more than a temporary amusement last year, is racking up Republican votes, why would it be assumed he is not doing the same among disaffected Democrats?  Wouldn\’t polling which addresses this issue have some relevance to someone, somewhere?

With this in mind, please read the following excerpt from Colin Deppen\’s article at pennlive.com:

Nearly 46,000 Pennsylvania Democrats have gone Republicansince the start of 2016, twice as many as have shifted the other way, as a wildprimary fight continues to upend the business of politics as usual andchallenge the status quo.

Needless to say, much of this movement is being attributed tothe rise of Donald Trump and the so-called “Ditch and Switch”movement, which leans on lifelong Democrats to abandon the party, registerRepublican and help ensure Trump\’s place in the November general election.

“With the increase in support in exit polls for Trump among working class,blue-collar Democrats, it is my belief that these are people who fall into thatgenre,” said (Dr. G. Terry) Madonna, who is director of the Centerfor Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College inLancaster. 

In Massachusetts, as many as 20,000 Democrats have gone fromblue-to-red this year with Trump cited as a primary reason. And in Ohio, asmany as 1,000 blue collar workers have promised to switch parties and vote forTrump.

Asking again:  why wouldn\’t mainstream media be asking – make that insisting on – the inclusion of questions about crossover voting in their polls; the ones they\’ve commissioned anyway and would run no differently if those questions were added?

On January 5, I blogged about a poll from politico.com which asked Republicans what they thought of Trump (I was capitalizign his name then), and asked why they weren\’t asking the same of Democrats.  My exact words:

Why is it that – again, as always seems to be the case – a study is conducted asking about Trump\’s popularity among Republicans (who can then be classified as mouth-breathing neanderthals for supporting someone like him), but Democrats are not asked whether they would give trump their vote?  What is politico.com afraid of?  Do the people there avoid asking out of fear over what they might find out?  Or, is it that they did ask the question and did generate the information, but don\’t want to tell us what it is?

That question still obtains….and please assume I asked it of every other media venue as well.  

What are they afraid of finding out? That it is more than just Republicans, whom they can then demonize for their stupidity in supporting trump, but Democrats too, which means Republicans can\’t be singled out this way?

Just asking.  Too bad that, so far, our wonderful “neutral” media have decided not to provide an answer.

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