[The real problem with the 2022 news coverage is not that it was
off target, but rather that “prognostication-as-reporting is utterly
dysfunctional.” ]
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MEDIA MISLED ON ISSUES IMPORTANT TO MIDTERM VOTERS  
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David Moore
November 23, 2022
FAIR
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_ The real problem with the 2022 news coverage is not that it was off
target, but rather that “prognostication-as-reporting is utterly
dysfunctional.” _

Fox (11/1/22) greatly overestimated the size of the GOP House
majority because it underestimated the importance of
Democratic-leaning issues.,

 

The political press blew it.” So wrote Dana Milbank of
the WASHINGTON POST (11/9/22
[[link removed]]),
calling the fourth estate the “biggest loser of the midterm
elections.” As he points out, most of the headlines leading into
Election Day forecast a “Democratic wipeout.” And, it hardly bears
mentioning, such a Democratic rout didn’t occur.

Looking at where the prognosticators went wrong, a common theme is an
emphasis on the wrong campaign issues. A pre-election article
in POLITICO (10/19/22
[[link removed]]),
which purported to explain the “GOP’s midterm momentum,”
encapsulated many pundits’ predictions about the House contest:

Twenty days out from Election Day, voters are overwhelmingly focused
on the economy and inflation, Republicans are more trusted to handle
those issues, and crime beats out abortion as a second-tier issue.

This view was also reflected in FOX’S final “Power Rankings”
(11/1/22
[[link removed]])
that predicted “Republicans to take control of the House with a
19-seat majority, or 236 total seats.” Actually, if Republicans had
won 236 seats, that would leave the Democrats with 199—giving the
GOP a majority of 37 seats, not 19.  But why so bullish in the first
place? “Republicans are winning on the economy and crime, and that
translates into a decisive House majority.”

And Blake Hounshell
[[link removed]] argued
in the NEW YORK TIMES (10/19/22
[[link removed]])
that the election was breaking in favor of Republicans for three
reasons: the importance of inflation and crime, the relative
unimportance of abortion, and the historical pattern of midterm
elections that tend to be a referendum on the party of the president.

All these claims, of course, turned out to be wrong.

MISMEASURING ISSUES

Measuring the importance of issues to voters is fraught with
ambiguity. There is no single method for identifying such issues, and
thus polls find different and often conflicting results.

Prior to the election, for example, a poll by FOX (11/1/22
[[link removed]])
reported that 89% of voters were “extremely” or “very
concerned” about inflation, 79% about crime, 74% political
divisions, 73% Russia/Ukraine, 72% what is taught in schools, and 71%
abortion.

That form of the question allows respondents to give their opinions on
all the issues picked by the pollsters. FOX interpreted the results
to mean that only the top two “concerning” issues—inflation
(89%) and crime (79%)—would have any significant impact on the
outcome. What to make of the fact that three other issues were
“concerning” to more than seven in ten voters? That’s hardly a
trivial number. Yet the other issues were completely dismissed.

Another way to ask the question is to require respondents to identify
just one issue that is most important to them. But even then,
different polls find different results.

A prime example can be found by comparing the two 2022 Election Day
polls: the network exit poll
[[link removed]] and AP/FOX Votecast
[[link removed]].

The former asked respondents to indicate which _one _issue was most
important to their vote.

[Network Exit Poll: Most Important Issue to Your Vote]

_Source: Network exit poll
[[link removed]]_

As the table shows, 31% of voters chose inflation, and among that
group, 28% voted for a Democratic member of Congress, 71% for a
Republican—for a net GOP advantage of 43 percentage points. Another
27% chose abortion, which favored Democrats by a 53-point margin.

The Votecast poll of 2022 voters also asked respondents to specify
just one issue, though the question was phrased somewhat differently,
asking for the most important issue _facing the country._ The
question also included four additional items.

[Votecast: Most Important Issue Facing the Country]

_Source: AP/FOX Votecast_
[[link removed]]

Note that the five issues listed by the network exit poll are
virtually the same as the first five issues of Votecast. The only
difference is how each characterized the economy—“inflation” and
“economy and jobs” respectively.

Yet that difference in wording, as well as the number of issues,
produced startlingly different results. Almost half (48%) of Votecast
respondents chose “economy and job,” while only 31% of exit poll
respondents chose inflation. Also, Votecast shows just 10% choosing
abortion as the most important issue, while the network exit poll
reported 27% listing abortion most important.

In short, according to Votecast, the economy and jobs issue
overwhelmed abortion, while the exit poll suggested inflation was only
marginally more important to voters than abortion.

Other significant differences can be found as well. Both polls show
about 9% to 10% of voters listing immigration as most important. But
Votecast says the issue favors Republicans by a 78-point margin, while
the network exit poll says only a 48-point margin. Such differences
among polls are typical.

Also, it’s worth noting that climate change tied for third place in
Votecast, but was overlooked in the exit polls. This difference
illustrates how subjective and arbitrary are the choices that
pollsters make in determining which issues to examine.

PARTISAN DIFFERENCES ON ISSUES

In the previous analyses, little effort was made to differentiate the
top issues of Democrats, Republicans and independents. But any attempt
to understand the electorate requires such a differentiation.

[CNN: The central tension driving the 2022 election ]

_Richard Brownstein (CNN, 10/11/22
[[link removed]])
argued the 2022 midterms boiled down to the issues of “your money or
your rights?”_

In his analysis of “the central tension driving the ’22
election,” Ronald Brownstein
[[link removed]] (CNN, 10/11/22
[[link removed]])
emphasized that Democrats and Republicans were focused on quite
different issues. He cited Whit Ayres, a veteran GOP pollster: “The
blue team cares about abortion and democracy, and the red team cares
about crime and immigration and inflation.”

Brownstein went on to write:

The national NPR/PBS NEWSHOUR/Marist Poll released last week 
[[link removed]]offered
the latest snapshot of this divergence. Asked what issue they
considered most important in 2022, Republicans overwhelmingly chose
inflation (52%) and immigration (18%).

A comparable share of Democrats picked preserving democracy (32%),
abortion (21%) and healthcare (15%).

Independents split exactly in half between the priorities of the two
parties: inflation and immigration on the one side, and democracy,
abortion and healthcare on the other.

The important and obvious, but often overlooked, point is that
different voters are motivated by different issues. To note, for
example, that abortion is a motivating issue
[[link removed]] for
only 12% of the overall electorate overlooks the possibility that it
may be a crucial motivating issue for Democrats (21% chose this issue)
to turn out, and perhaps for independents to choose one party or the
other.

FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED CONCEPT

Apart from the inconsistency in poll results, the notion that national
polls can identify the issues that will determine which party will win
control of the House is fundamentally flawed.

The assumption behind the previous analyses is that most voters choose
candidates based on the issues. But that is backward for the vast
majority of voters. People who identify with a party will
overwhelmingly vote for that party, regardless of the issues.

Both Votecast and the network exit poll, for example, report that only
5% to 6% of party identifiers voted for a candidate not of their own
party.

Pollsters may ask respondents to identify the important issues for
them in this election, but the question is irrelevant for most
Republicans and Democrats. They will choose among issues suggested by
the poll interviewers. But the issues they choose will almost always
be the issues that conform to what their party leaders are already
stressing.

To put it graphically, for most voters PARTY —> ISSUES, not the
reverse.

Of course, at some point in most voters’ lives, they will probably
choose a party that best reflects their political values—or that
their parents, or spouse, or other loved one prefers, or that appeals
to them for some other miscellaneous reason.

But, in any given election, _most _voters have already decided which
party they prefer, and will simply vote for their party.

That’s one reason why national polls on issues don’t explain why
an election was won or lost. The identification of issues is
irrelevant—except for a narrow slice of the electorate, which
includes small percentages of swing voters, and of occasional voters
who are indeed motivated by issues. And it’s this group that will
provide the deciding votes.

These are the “persuadables”—voters who might be expected to
vote for their own party and don’t; or independents who are
persuaded to choose a Democrat or Republican this time, though they
might change in the next election; or infrequent voters who decide to
turn out in this election because of a particular issue or set of
issues.

Motivating a tiny slice

[Washington Post chart comparing turnout in midterm and presidential
elections]

_As the WASHINGTON POST (12/31/18
[[link removed]])
pointed out, turnout in the 2018 midterms was the highest in 50
years—following 2014, which was the lowest in 70 years. (2022
turnout is expected
[[link removed]] to
be about 46%—closer to 2018 than to 2014.)_

How narrow is this slice? The short answer: About 10% to 15% of voters
could be considered “persuadable.”

Votecast reported that in the 2022 election, the number of
independents (who don’t lean to either party) was 8%. Add to this
party identifiers who switched their allegiance (representing about 4%
of the whole electorate). And add to that an unknown (but probably
small) number of occasional voters who turned out this time but not
some other time, and the total could be as high as 15%.

The number could be even higher in a wave election. Turnout in the
2018 midterms, for example, was the highest in 50 years
[[link removed]].
This suggests an unusually high number of occasional voters (and
“new” voters who had reached voting age in the previous four
years) were persuaded to turn out, because of “issues” or some
other factor. But it’s impossible for pollsters to predict how large
the turnout in any given election will actually be.

Another complication, specifically for the congressional contests, is
that only persuadable voters _in competitive districts_ can make a
difference. 538 estimates
[[link removed]] that
124 congressional seats were competitive this year, or 28.5% of the
total—45 that leaned Democratic, 39 Republican, and 40 “highly
competitive” seats that leaned in neither direction. What these
numbers mean is that only about 4% to 5% of the national electorate
(15% of 28.5%) are in a position to determine the outcome of the House
contest. Even if it were a wave election with, say, 25% of the voters
in the persuadable category, that still means that only 7% to 8% of
the electorate would be casting the decisive votes.

Pollsters simply can’t tease out such a small proportion of the
respondents in their sample to see what motivates them to vote.

Traditionally, pollsters present their data as I summarized their
findings earlier in this article: How many voters _overall _prefer
each issue, and how do respondents who prefer a given issue actually
vote?

Clearly, that didn’t work in this election. And there is no reason
to be confident it will work in any other given election.

POST-ELECTION ISSUE IMPORTANCE

The post-election period is more amenable to analysis of issues. By
then we know the actual vote totals, and can compare which districts
over- and under-performed with respect to party distribution, and how
they compared with other districts and with the national vote. From
those comparisons, it is possible to infer which issues might have
been decisive.

One example is abortion. Just four days before the election, an
article in the NEW YORK TIMES (11/4/22
[[link removed]])
carried the headline: “At Campaign’s End, Democrats See Limits of
Focus on Abortion.” Too few people overall cited abortion as a
crucial issue.

[xxxxxx: The Data Have Spoken: Abortion Was a Decisive Issue in the
2022 Midterms]

_William Saletan (xxxxxx, 11/11/22
[[link removed]]):
“Dobbs didn’t just influence which candidates people voted for.
It also influenced whether they showed up at the polls at all—and
this provided a crucial boost to pro-choice candidates.”_

After the election, William Saletan of the xxxxxx (11/11/22
[[link removed]])
reviewed both the network exit poll and Votecast, and concluded that
in fact, “Abortion was a decisive issue in the 2022 midterms.” In
enough districts, it affected a small but significant number of voters
in both their decision to vote and who to vote for.

Another example: Looking at the pattern of voting across all
congressional districts and in the crucial Senate elections, Nate Cohn
of the NEW YORK TIMES (11/16/22
[[link removed]])
concluded that, on average, Trump-endorsed candidates under-performed
non-MAGA candidates by an average of about 5 percentage points.
Although not mentioned as a typical “issue,” it would appear that
the former president was nevertheless a significant influence on the
election.

No doubt, similar analyses can address the relative importance of
other issues. Analyzing what happened, based on actual data, is much
more insightful than predicting what might happen.

The real problem with the 2022 news coverage, however, is not that it
was off target, but rather, as Julie Hollar noted previously on this
site (11/10/22
[[link removed]]),
“prognostication-as-reporting is utterly dysfunctional.” Judd
Legum (POPULAR INFORMATION, 11/10/22
[[link removed]]) likewise argues
that the political media is “broken”:

Even if media predictions were correct, they represent a style of
political reporting that is dysfunctional. Campaign coverage is
increasingly focused on anticipating who will win through polling
analysis. But politics is unpredictable, and polls are not nearly
precise enough to predict the outcome of a close contest.

That’s a lesson we relearn each election.

_David Moore is a senior fellow with the Carsey School at the
University of New Hampshire, and a two-time winner of the EPPY
(Editors and Publishers) Award for his writing on iMediaEthics. He is
a former managing editor of the Gallup Poll, and author of The
Opinion Makers: An Insider Exposes the Truth Behind the Polls._

_FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering
well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We
work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater
diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that
marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. As an
anti-censorship organization, we expose neglected news stories and
defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive
group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to
break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent
public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of
information.  We rely on your support to keep running. Please
consider donating. DONATE [[link removed]]_

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