1/ Lots of dunking on Nate Sliver as we celebrate the good election news. But, honestly, the results merely affirm that political journalists desperately need a gut check, as they currently seem to accomplish little beyond inventing false horserace narratives.
2/ Let's begin with the polls. Last night, @ForecasterEnten, a former 538 alum, argued that the results indicate we should "trust the polls." But the polls, once again, were significantly off, probably by around 10 points.
3/ No guarantee exists that they weren't also incorrect in August, when they were showing a tight race and generating "but things are close" stories. If the polls had been off in the other direction, we would be writing articles about the shitty polls.
4/ On top of that, we had countless stories being written about the supposed collapse of the Democratic coalition.
5/ One CalMatters piece, for example, borrowed talk of "mad moms" directly from a Republican operative, drawing mostly from a single interview to support it. calmatters.org/projects/newso…
6/ You had pieces about the collapse of Hispanic support, including this one by Gustavo Arellano. It ends with the line, "Newsom is about as loved by many Latinos as a stale Mexican Coke." The final results indicate little drop from Hispanic voters. latimes.com/california/sto…
7/ We need to stop expecting our politicians to be rock stars. Newsom is "stale Mexican coke!" He's a privileged white guy and boring as dirt. But he also has quietly guided us through the pandemic, implementing policies that have (more or less) kept us safe.
8/ Given the fraud allegations that have become a normal part of the election cycle, we desperately need journalists to do a better job. But they can't improve if they don't have a moment of introspection. And, as far as I can tell, that isn't happening. Do better, folks.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
