During the debate between Trump and Harris, it was evident that the network had decided to do whatever it took to help Harris win.
The network just got the bad news this week that its efforts failed, as there has been little to no movement for Harris after the debate.
Talking Points…
- A rigged debate
- No movement for Harris
- Analysis
I have to say, it was rather disappointing regarding the information that came out after the debate rather than before. One of the biggest pieces of information was that moderator Linsey Davis and Kamala Harris belonged to the same sorority in college. They did not attend the same school and were not in college at the same time, but that is irrelevant. You can believe there was pressure on Davis from her fellow sorority sisters to help one of their own. This is a piece of information that Trump could have pulled out in the middle of the debate to knock them both off their game.
Then there is the fact that the Disney executive who oversees ABC News is a neighbor of Kamala Harris, who once called her an “extraordinary friend.” Or how about the fact that after the interview, Davis admitted they were only going to fact-check Trump to make sure the same thing that happened to Joe Biden did not happen to Harris, with Davis telling the Los Angeles Times:
"People were concerned that statements were allowed to just hang and not [be] disputed by the candidate Biden, at the time, or the moderators.”
While they corrected Trump several times, they allowed Harris to say whatever she wanted without a single fact-checking during the debate. By my count, Harris told at least 21 lies, all allowed to pass except the ones Donald Trump called out in real time. Even then, the moderators chose to sit on their hands rather than address the correction.
With the election rigged and the general consensus that Harris won the debate, most expected her to get a huge bump in polling, but it never happened. ABC ran its own poll, but Harris’ numbers held firm, surely shocking the ABC powers that be who decided to rig the debate in her favor.
After the debate, ABC News released its numbers, with the biggest margin for Harris being the 6% she had among likely voters, 5% overall, and 4% among all adults. ABC News then reported:
“Vote preferences haven’t moved meaningfully.
“This poll finds the race at 51-46%, Harris-Trump, among all adults; 51-47% among registered voters; and 52-46% among likely voters. Each is within a percentage point of its pre-debate level in ABC/Ipsos polling.”
Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich also commented on the debate and polling, stating:
“The dishonesty and bias of the moderators set new records for a network trying to rig a debate.
“The big loser from Tuesday’s Presidential Debate was ABC News.”
I think what really hurt Harris and ABC News here was that, in several cases, the fact-checking that was done was wrong. For instance, when they checked Trump on his claim about babies being allowed to die in failed abortions, his rapid response team showed states, including Minnesota, that had allowed children to die after birth from failed abortions, so Trump clearly had that right. As much as people do not like Trump, I think they like a rigged race even less, so that debate appears to have hurt Harris, not helped her.
