Caleb Howe at Mediaite touted a finding in a new PBS/NPR/Marist poll that they weren't promoting: "Shock Poll: Trump Gains 19 Points with Latino Voters During Border Wall Shutdown."
Howe wrote "Trump may have suffered some among Republicans overall, but he saw a huge point gain in a different demographic breakdown, and an unexpected one by conventional wisdom."
In early December, the poll had Trump’s approval rating among Latino adults at 31%.
The results from the poll released Thursday show the president’s job approval among Latino adults at 50%.
That is an astonishing 19 point swing. Prior results had less variance, with Latino approval numbers at 36% in their November 1st findings. It was 27% in the pollster’s mid-October survey.
The January poll was conducted during the government shutdown over border wall funding, most notably. So the big swing among Latinos was while Trump and Democrats faced off over funding for the wall.
The pollsters would probably say the sample of Latinos (about 150 in December) is too small, and the margin of error too large. The number also swings. Go back to October, and the approval number among Latinos surveyed is 41 percent.
But the public broadcasters can cite other subsets confidently. On Thursday's Morning Edition, political editor Domenico Montanaro reported "Trump's base mostly blames Democrats for the shutdown. But 61 percent of people overall say that during this shutdown, they have a more negative opinion of President Trump. That includes almost a quarter of Republicans, 40 percent of white evangelical Christians and 55 percent of whites without a college degree." NPR's online article also broke down categories to underline "Trump Has Lost Ground With Key Groups In His Base," but skipped over the Latinos.
if you click thru to the PBS NewsHour website, the polls is all about political doom for the president: "57 percent of voters say they won’t support Trump in 2020." On television, reporter Lisa Desjardins mentioned the poll on Friday night: "In a PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released this week, 54 percent of Americans blame the president [for the shutdown]. But 31 percent blame congressional Democrats."
Okay, perhaps the NewsHour did not want to headline the poll results that Howe found to be astonishing, but it must be somewhere in the body of their article, right? Wrong. Nowhere is there even a mention of the word "Latino" in their article, thereby avoiding having to report on their 50% support for Trump in the midst of the government shutdown over the border wall.
The Latino poll number isn't that hard to find once you click the "RESULTS" button. That takes you to 36 PDF pages chock full of detailed poll results. The Latino number is on page 3. But PBS and NPR carefully picked the poll results they wanted to share.
