As Joe Biden nears his 100th day in office, a new poll conducted for the Media Research Center by McLaughlin & Associates finds a plurality of voters say the news media have given the President an easier ride than his predecessors.
The public’s perception of a pro-Biden bias is confirmed by a recent MRC study which found broadcast evening news coverage of the new President has been more positive than negative (59% positive vs. 41% negative). By contrast, our analysis of the same time period in 2017 found 89% negative coverage of President Trump, vs. just 11% positive.
The poll of 1,000 people who voted in last fall’s general election was conducted from April 8 to April 12. When asked if they thought the news media has been easier or harder on Joe Biden, or if Biden has been treated about the same as other Presidents, voters by a more than three-to-one margin saw the media as going easy on Biden.
Nearly half (45.3%) said the media had been “easier on Joe Biden,” compared to just 13.8% who said the media had been “harder on Joe Biden.” Just over a third (34.7%) said they thought the media had treated Biden about the same as other Presidents, while 6.2% said they didn’t know.
Even among those who voted for Biden in November, the results were fairly evenly split: 21.9% thought the media were harder on Biden, vs. 17.0% who agreed the media have been easier on Biden. But among those who voted for Donald Trump last year, the results were much more lopsided: 75.8% saw the media as easier on Biden, vs. just 5.0% who said the media were harder on Biden.
Similarly, Democrats were divided on whether the media have been easier or harder on Biden (19.2% vs. 23.9%), but both Republicans and independents strongly favored the view that the media have gone easier on Biden compared to his predecessors.
Two-thirds of Republicans (67.2%) said the media had been easier on Biden, vs. just 8.7% who said the media have been harder on Biden; among independent voters, the split was 51.7% vs. 6.9%.
For details and more results from this poll, visit McLaughlineOnline.com.
