Americans more skeptical about social media than rest of world

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It’s hard to overemphasize the impact social media has had on the national political landscape over the past two decades. The sources we choose to follow and the algorithms that form around us not only impact the color and tone of the news we get, but in many ways they define our reality every time we check on our smartphones.

A recent global survey from the Pew Research Center shows how much our relationship with social media has become a love/hate affair. And that’s especially true when you compare the attitudes of Americans to the attitudes of those in other countries.

To start with, we might be addicted to the devices in our pockets and the content that pops in Facebook, Twitter or TikTok — but Americans also believe it’s probably not the healthiest habit. Overall, about two-thirds of Americans, 64%, said they think social media is bad for democracy. The median “bad for democracy” numbers for the other 18 counties in the Pew survey was only 34%. That’s a massive gap. CONTINUED

Dante Chinni, NBC News

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The ‘Red Wave’ Washout: How Skewed Polls Fed a False Election Narrative

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… Traditional nonpartisan pollsters, after years of trial and error and tweaking of their methodologies, produced polls that largely reflected reality. But they also conducted fewer polls than in the past. That paucity allowed their accurate findings to be overwhelmed by an onrush of partisan polls in key states that more readily suited the needs of the sprawling and voracious political content machine — one sustained by ratings and clicks, and famished for fresh data and compelling narratives.

The skewed red-wave surveys polluted polling averages, which are relied upon by campaigns, donors, voters and the news media. It fed the home-team boosterism of an expanding array of right-wing media outlets — from Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast and “The Charlie Kirk Show” to Fox News and its top-rated prime-time lineup. And it spilled over into coverage by mainstream news organizations, including The Times, that amplified the alarms being sounded about potential Democratic doom.

The virtual “bazaar of polls,” as a top Republican strategist called it, was largely kept humming by right-leaning pollsters using opaque methodology, in some cases relying on financial support from hyperpartisan groups and benefiting from vociferous cheerleading by Mr. Trump. CONTINUED

Jim Rutenberg, Ken Bensinger & Steve Eder, New York Times

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Black support for GOP ticked up in this year’s midterms

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Black voters have been a steady foundation for Democratic candidates for decades, but that support appeared to show a few cracks in this year’s elections. Republican candidates were backed by 14% of Black voters, compared with 8% in the last midterm elections four years ago, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive national survey of the electorate. …

It’s too early to tell whether the 2022 survey data reflects the beginnings of a longer-term drift of Black voters toward the GOP or whether the modest Republican gains from an overwhelmingly Democratic group will hold during a presidential year. CONTINUED

Ayanna Alexander & Gary Fields, Associated Press

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Since 2018, Republicans have lost confidence in U.S. institutions

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In June and July 2018, we launched a U.S. survey that asked 5,400 Americans how much confidence they had in a series of national institutions, called the American Institutional Confidence (AIC) Poll. These included political, social and business institutions. …

With these questions, we collected detailed demographic and background data on respondents that allowed us to weight their responses toward approximating U.S. adults nationwide on age, gender, education, region, party identification and income level, as estimated by the census. Respondents were part of YouGov’s opt-in survey panel.

In August and October 2021, we returned with a follow-up survey. We were able to reinterview nearly 2,400 of our original respondents, and add an additional 1,700 participants through YouGov. CONTINUED

Jonathan Ladd (Georgetown), Sean Kates (Penn) & Joshua Tucker (NYU), Monkey Cage

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Young Republicans warn the party to promote issues that young voters care about

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Most young voters cast their ballots for Democratic candidates in last month’s midterm elections. Now, young Republicans are demanding change from their party to keep up with their generation.

A Martínez & Elena Moore, NPR News

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2022’s Most Unexpected Winners and Losers

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Generally, we don’t like to endorse zero-sum views of the world, but it was hard to miss the seesaw effect at play across the political landscape of 2022. So we offer for your amusement (or annoyance, depending on your political priors) 11 sets of paired winners and losers — the people, ideas and movements that soared or stumbled in 2022.

1. Winner: Polls
The 2022 midterms vindicated pollsters who had been under scrutiny ever since they wrongly predicted Hillary Clinton would win against Donald Trump in 2016. CONTINUED

Politico Magazine

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