Since the start of the government shutdown, a majority of voters have blamed President Donald Trump. His polling has ranged between 50% and 60%. Blame on the Democratic House has ranged between 30% and 40%. On MSNBC the other day, anchor Katy Tur made the claim that a new Pew Research poll found 53% of the public now blame the Democratic Party for the shutdown, also noting that most pollsters run contrary to this and blame Trump. Due to the outlier-nature of this report, I decided to do a little fact-checking and here's what I found.
While Ms. Tur was accurate in the specific number she reported, she was inaccurate in what that number represented. The Pew Research poll she cited asked participants whether they approved or disapproved how Donald Trump, Republican Congressional leaders, and Democratic Congressional leaders were handling shutdown negotiations. Here were the results:
- 53% disapprove of how Democratic Congressional leaders are handling shutdown negotiations
- 60% disapprove of how Republican Congressional leaders are handling shutdown negotiations
- 61% disapprove of how Donald Trump is handling shutdown negotiations
So while it's true 53% of respondents said they disapproved of how Democrats are handling negotiations in the government shutdown, that was 7- and 8-point improvement on the same numbers for Republican leaders of Congress and President Trump. While I respect Katy Tur as a professional and tried reaching out to her about the slip-up on Twitter, she has yet to reach out to me or correct herself, so I felt the need to report the truth here.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/18/americans-view-this-shutdown-much-as-they-did-past-ones-negatively-and-with-much-anxiety/
While Ms. Tur was accurate in the specific number she reported, she was inaccurate in what that number represented. The Pew Research poll she cited asked participants whether they approved or disapproved how Donald Trump, Republican Congressional leaders, and Democratic Congressional leaders were handling shutdown negotiations. Here were the results:
- 53% disapprove of how Democratic Congressional leaders are handling shutdown negotiations
- 60% disapprove of how Republican Congressional leaders are handling shutdown negotiations
- 61% disapprove of how Donald Trump is handling shutdown negotiations
So while it's true 53% of respondents said they disapproved of how Democrats are handling negotiations in the government shutdown, that was 7- and 8-point improvement on the same numbers for Republican leaders of Congress and President Trump. While I respect Katy Tur as a professional and tried reaching out to her about the slip-up on Twitter, she has yet to reach out to me or correct herself, so I felt the need to report the truth here.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/18/americans-view-this-shutdown-much-as-they-did-past-ones-negatively-and-with-much-anxiety/
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