Election polling is big-time news these days. Unless the media doesn't like the results. Then, apparently, it's not news at all. Take CNN, NRO's Kyle Smith says. They just spent a pile of money to ask voters what they think of President Trump. Believe it or not, his approval ratings have never been higher -- not that viewers would know it, since CNN virtually ignored the numbers altogether.
It took RealClearPolitics to break the story on CNN's poll, since the network decided that a Target shopper without a mask was of more national consequence than the president making a statistical comeback. Only digging under dozens of other headlines did Kyle Smith find a single reference to the results. "CNN seemed oddly unenthused about its own poll. And the story to which the homepage linked doesn't even mention that Trump had never scored higher in a CNN poll... But the single most surprising and newsworthy detail of the poll was that Trump holds a seven-point lead over Biden in 15 battleground states."
And here's where it gets truly comical. The outlet is so desperate to downplay Trump's surge that it draws attention to the "small sample size" and insists that "it's difficult to determine... whether the movement is significant or a fluke..." Funny, CNN didn't seem to think any of its Biden-leaning polls were a coincidence. Yet now, when the president has an advantage, the results must suddenly be wrong. Is it any wonder Americans have such little confidence in the mainstream media? Agendas like this one only fuel the country's distrust.
Unfortunately for the liberal media, the president's numbers aren't just improving overall, they're suggesting a stark contrast on issues that matter the most. Asked who they trusted to handle the economy, 54 percent of voters said Donald Trump. Far fewer -- 42 percent -- said the same about Biden.
Obviously, this polling -- or any polling -- isn't the end-all, be-all for Trump. There are plenty of obstacles for the White House to overcome, including a crisis environment where even a sneeze in the wrong direction can mean a full news cycle of blame. As anyone who paid attention in 2016 knows, surveys only tell one part of the story. A lot like the mainstream media, it appears.