In her latest column for the New York Post, Salena Zito gives a reminder of why Donald Trump became president and why the media was so off base in predicting the outcome of the 2016 election.
America’s political experts got it wrong in 2016 — not because they took too few polls, but because they made the false assumption that American elections are immune to societal change.
They are still getting it wrong https://t.co/Z4fyo8pM2x— SalenaZito (@SalenaZito) May 5, 2018
The problem, she says, for the media is that the same forces that drove Trump voters to the polls in 2016 are still at play.
“They are, in large part, still getting things wrong, not only by failing to understand a new group of voters who put President Donald Trump in the White House but also by ignoring why they voted the way they did.”
The key to that paragraph is “why they did.” Many voters were undoubtedly uncomfortable with Trump as a personality but cast their vote for him because he represented the frustrations that they share.
And while the media obsesses over the future demise of the president, they aren’t pausing to consider the strength & durability of the coalition that swept him into office.
They forget he wasn’t the cause he was the result & cause hasn’t gone awayhttps://t.co/Z4fyo8pM2x— SalenaZito (@SalenaZito) May 5, 2018
It will be interesting to see what electoral factors are at play in 2020 and whether Trump can wield the same style to victory.
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