The Blue Tory Voters

For John, BLUF:  "Pollsters let President Trump get in their way in understanding the electorate, and so did reporters and political scientists."  They missed the trend toward "Blue Tory" voters.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Voters stood up to the culture and declared their center-right values

From The Washington Examiner, by Reporter Salena Zito, 8 November 2020.

Here is the lede plus two:

PINE TOWNSHIP — Had you spent any space of time in this northern suburb of Pittsburgh listening to voters, finding out what things mattered to them when it came to schools, community growth, economic prosperity, and the emotional impact of COVID-19 lockdowns, you would have at least been skeptical of the media narrative and the polls that claimed suburban voters here are no longer center-right.

Not Republican per se, just center-right.

Most reporters certainly didn’t take the time to do so.  Instead, they relied on the scolding of our cultural curators in sports, media, and Hollywood as an indicator of how these college-educated, affluent voters would vote.  Surely, they thought, these suburbs would cave under the cultural pressure, push left, and their votes would send a blue shock wave across the country.

At least there is a theory of why that dream was just a dream and not a likely reality.  The Reporter, Ms Zito, goes on to say:

Going into Election Day, the polls and the media narrative expected that Republicans were going to be swept out of office down the ballot in a blue wave.  They believed the country had now fully embraced "wokeism" and rejected center-right values and principles.

Pollsters let President Trump get in their way in understanding the electorate, and so did reporters and political scientists.

For a brief moment as a reporter, I struggled with lining up what the data was telling me.  It conflicted with what my reporting was telling me, conflicted with what voters were telling me, and conflicted with what cultural cues were telling me.  So I went back out in search of that blue wave in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

It turns out that the only place that blue wave existed was on Twitter or in a poll — never once in an experience or an interview.

The big failure was on the part of the Press Fraternity.  Even Fox News failed to understand that it was going to be a close run thing and that in the House of Representatives the flow would actually be the other way.  In sum, no Blue Wave, no mandate.

I think Fox News Channel will be hardest hit.  Also likely to be hit is Facebook.  Probably not a big hit, but a noticable blip in the numbers, as folks like my Canadian like Blue Tories skip to other platforms, such as Portal.  They don't like being censored by "Woke" Progressives or Chinese agents.  They are writing in EMails that they have dropped facebook.

Remember when information wanted to be free?  Even Wikipedia remembers.  Sadly, Messrs Jeff Zuckerburg and Jack Dorsey and their ilk do not.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff