Sometimes I wonder whether or not the mainstream media ever checks the facts on a story if they conflict with the "accepted" narrative. There was another case of this today. I read an article in which a young state legislator in West Virginia was interviewed. She is the youngest member of a state legislature in the country and she is a conservative Republican. Half the article was about this woman, but the other half was a lengthy discussion of how those voters under 30 strongly support the Democrats over the Republicans.
I was surprised to see this article in view of the recent movement of young people away from the Democrats. The latest Gallup results put the approval of president Obama by whites under age 30 at just 34%. This is 3% higher than the approval rating Obama gets from older voters, a gap within the margin of error. I realize that Obama's approval numbers among blacks of all ages are much higher, but there is again no statistically significant difference between older and younger black voters in this regard. Since approval of Obama is the best number to use to determine support for Democrats, the article is just wrong. Further, the support levels for Obama among the young have fallen from strong approval to strong disapproval over the last few years. Even in the midterm elections last month, support for Democrats by those under 30 fell greatly from the previous vote. So, while none of this means anything for 2016, the proof is pretty compelling that the preference for Democrats which used to be prevalent among the young has evaporated.
It is worth noting that the article was on Yahoo News, so perhaps it is unfair to call it the mainstream media. Yahoo News is a highly slanted operation that seems more like MSNBC than an actual news source. Still, it is discouraging that purported news articles are released and the media feel compelled to insert factually incorrect "analysis" into the story even though a quick check of the real facts would quickly show just how wrong that "analysis" is.
I was surprised to see this article in view of the recent movement of young people away from the Democrats. The latest Gallup results put the approval of president Obama by whites under age 30 at just 34%. This is 3% higher than the approval rating Obama gets from older voters, a gap within the margin of error. I realize that Obama's approval numbers among blacks of all ages are much higher, but there is again no statistically significant difference between older and younger black voters in this regard. Since approval of Obama is the best number to use to determine support for Democrats, the article is just wrong. Further, the support levels for Obama among the young have fallen from strong approval to strong disapproval over the last few years. Even in the midterm elections last month, support for Democrats by those under 30 fell greatly from the previous vote. So, while none of this means anything for 2016, the proof is pretty compelling that the preference for Democrats which used to be prevalent among the young has evaporated.
It is worth noting that the article was on Yahoo News, so perhaps it is unfair to call it the mainstream media. Yahoo News is a highly slanted operation that seems more like MSNBC than an actual news source. Still, it is discouraging that purported news articles are released and the media feel compelled to insert factually incorrect "analysis" into the story even though a quick check of the real facts would quickly show just how wrong that "analysis" is.
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