Almost immediately after the U.S. and Israel launched their airstrikes against Iran early on February 28th, the networks rushed to do polls, which found more Americans disapproved and than approved of the military action that just started. Those results have been used as one of the many talking points repeated by the leftist media, as they continue to trash President Trump’s decision, and the entire undertaking.
However, something quite shocking took place on CNN on Saturday evening, the negative poll numbers were given context. During their special war coverage, Host John Berman threw it to their numbers expert, Harry Enten, who had the side by side results of four major polls up on the board, and had an attention grabbing statement right off the top.
BERMAN: Want to take a closer look at what the American public is thinking about what’s going on in Iran. With us now CNN Chief Data Analyst Harry Enten. Harry what are you seeing?
ENTEN: Yes, John, look, we’ve gotten a bunch of polling back since the U.S. Military started its most recent action against Iran and you know what? It’s a bit of a confusing picture. It doesn’t seem like one at first, but it’s a bit of a confusing polling picture. Let’s just take a look right now at the overall average of polls okay. View of U.S. military action in Iran. And you take an average of CNN, Fox, IPSOS and NBC polls.
What you see here is you see that the clear majority of Americans disapprove of the action. We’re talking about 51% of Americans disapprove, just 40% approve. [11 point split.] And I should note, all of these polls, all these polls came in between February 28th, they started on February 28th and then ended by March 3rd.
Is this the way America should decide on going to war? Instant polls? Before anyone knows whether it will succeed or not?
So far the report seems pretty cut and dried. But that was about to change, as Enten switched to the net approval rating.
ENTEN: You see this 11-point split, but this actually hides some major disagreements between the different polls. Why do I say that? Take a look here okay. This is the net approval rating. That’s the approval rating minus the disapproval rating. And this is the net approval rating for U.S. Military action in Iran. Look at this. CNN, our own CNN poll shows that the net approval rating is -18 points, very similar to the IPSOS polling at -16 points. But then all of a sudden you see the NBC news polling and look at this, you see it at -11 points getting a little bit more popular. And then you look at the latest Fox News poll, and that’s a split, a dead even split at zero points.
Enten then pointed out that the differences in the numbers have him a bit troubled.
ENTEN: So yes, on average, the polling is showing that the move is unpopular, but that actually hides major disagreements between the polling. And I should note the polling questions are pretty similar and all conducted at about the same time, so I’m not exactly sure what’s going on.
And then Enten did something the liberal media hardly ever does — he put the story he was telling in perspective.
ENTEN: But there’s another reason why John, you should take these initial numbers with a grain of salt, because I want to go back to the June airstrikes, right. Net approval rating, U.S. military action in Iran after the June airstrikes. Initially in late June, look at this, underwater at minus eight points.
But by July, look at that. After the military option was deemed successful, it became much more popular. [Plus 2 points.] Now we’re just going to have to wait and see what this current military action in Iran how exactly the polling shifts. But right now I would really take the numbers with a grain of salt. Keeping in mind that there’s big polling disagreement and the numbers may change down the road.
The Enten segment was apparently on tape, and the best Berman could come up with in response was, « Harry thank you very much for that. Yes, polling does often track what people think is a successful or non-successful operation. » Gee, thanks John.
Source:
www.newsbusters.org