Thread by @PalmerReport

Biden's approval rating has dropped significantly, as happens to nearly all new Presidents in their first year. But keep in mind that the media is mostly just quoting Biden's worst poll numbers and ignoring his best poll numbers. It's the usual trick for painting a narrative.

If the media decides next month that it can't milk any more ratings out of portraying Biden as unpopular, it'll start quoting his best poll numbers instead, and then (falsely) claim that Biden has gone up five points. When in reality his averages will have remained the same.

This isn't anything new, or unique to Biden. The media – particularly MSNBC and CNN – love to take a politician's best or worst poll number and quote it as if it were representative of that politician's overall numbers, for shock value.

This trick is used particularly often during an election cycle. One week the media says "Smith is gaining" and only quotes Smith's best poll number. The next week the media says "The race is tightening" and only quotes Smith's worst poll number.

And then when the election results end up looking very different than the way the polls were portrayed on TV, everyone thinks the polls were wrong and stops trusting them.

When in reality the final polling averages are usually proven correct within the stated margin of error.

Were you surprised in Virginia? You shouldn't have been. The final polling averages had Youngkin ahead by 1.6 points, and he ended up winning by 2 points.

Even when the polls are dead-on, the media often portrays them out of context, and you end up THINKING the polls were wrong.

Even in 2016, the final polling averages had Hillary up by 4 points, and she won the popular vote by 2 points. That was correct, within the stated three point margin of error. Not much consolation. But the polls weren't wrong in 2016.