Polling can be a useful tool to gauge the temperature of the public on a given topic, policy, or political race.
But polling can also be used to manipulate a narrative and achieve a political end.
And CNN’s latest rounds of polls once again prove they can’t be trusted.
60% of the time, it works every time
There is no shortage of polling in political campaign season.
Campaigns use them internally – and release them to the press if they like the results – to gauge their candidate’s chances of winning an election.
And polling firms and colleges team up with news outlets to create surveys that oftentimes are little more than content for their shows, newspapers, and websites.
If you know how to read a poll properly, and if there are enough of them over a given period of time in a particular race, they can be very useful in predicting the outcome of an election.
However, for that to work, the poll has to be honest.
Unfortunately, many polling outfits deliberately manipulate their numbers to favor Democrats.
Why?
The positive narrative the survey results create can be used to build momentum and fundraising dollars for their preferred candidates, and at the same time, depress support for the GOP candidate.
“The polls are just being used as another tool of voter suppression,” Rush Limbaugh once said. “The polls are an attempt to not reflect public opinion, but to shape it. They want to depress the heck out of you.”
The last several election-cycles a disturbing trend has emerged.
Polling will show Democrats running way ahead of expectations – until the final poll from the given outlet, which will then reflect a more accurate picture in an attempt to save face and credibility.
However, for some, the urge to control the narrative is too great to resist – credibility be damned.
That is the case for CNN.
The most untrusted name in polling
The “most trusted name in news” has earned a reputation of having some of the most unreliable poll results in the entire industry.
And their latest round of surveys is a perfect illustration of that point.
Take Pennsylvania, for example.
Dr. Mehmet Oz has been trailing Keystone State Lt. Governor John Fetterman from the moment the primaries ended – in fact, at some points, the Republican trailed the Democrat by double-digits.
However, largely thanks to Fetterman’s health and poor performance, Oz has climbed back into the race.
The fact is, the RealClearPolitics average now has Oz only trailing Fetterman by 1.3-points, well within the margin of error of any poll.
The trend line is very clear, Oz is surging, Fetterman is faltering.
However, that hasn’t stopped CNN from putting out a complete outlier result showing Fetterman up 5-points – a lead just outside their ridiculous 4.9 percent margin of error.
Over in Wisconsin, incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson has surged as voters wake up to news of his Democrat opponent, Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes’ radical history.
But as Johnson goes from once trailing to now surging – the most recent survey before CNN showed Johnson up 6-points – CNN has the race deadlocked and too close to call.
This is nothing new from the Never-Trump news network.
A long history of being wrong
Back in 2018, CNN’s final survey had then-candidate Ron DeSantis trailing Democrat Mayor of Tallahassee Andrew Gillum by 12-points.
DeSantis won a close contest, by just a half-point – making CNN’s poll off by 12.5-points.
They were just as bad in swing states in the 2020 Presidential election.
6-point Democrat bias in North Carolina, 9-point Democrat bias in Michigan, 7-point Democrat bias in Wisconsin, 9-point Democrat bias in Pennsylvania, 4-point Democrat bias in Arizona and a 7.5-point Democrat bias in Florida.
Nationally they were just as bad.
CNN actually put out into the word a prediction that Biden would win the general election over then-President Trump by a 56-44 margin.
In today’s political environment, no party could score a 12-point victory nationally.
Using data from Nate Silver’s 538, if CNN’s polling is off the same amount in 2022 as it was in 2020, the GOP would win the U.S. Senate races in North Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, and even New Hampshire.
That would give Republicans a commanding 54-46 lead in the Senate, with an even more favorable Senate map waiting for them in 2024.
They would also cruise to an easy majority in the House of Representatives.
That’s what happens when the corporate-controlled media uses polls to advance a narrative instead of predicting a realistic outcome.
