- Over half of U.S.. voters (51%) think reporters
are trying to hurt Sarah Palin with their news coverage, and 24% say those
stories make them more likely to vote for Republican presidential candidate John
McCain in November.
-
- Thirty-nine percent (39%) also believe the GOP vice presidential
nominee has better experience to be president of the United States than
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
-
- But 49% give Obama the edge on experience, according
to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken before
Palin's historic speech Wednesday night to the Republican National Convention.
-
- While Republicans and Democrats predictably
favor their party's candidate by overwhelming margins, the experience gap
among voters unaffiliated with either party is even narrower than the national
totals. Forty-two percent (42%) say Obama has better experience to be president,
but 37% say Palin does.
-
- The potential problem for Democrats is that Obama, the
junior U.S. senator from Illinois and a former state
legislator, is the party's standard-bearer, while Palin, an ex-mayor and
now governor of Alaska, is number two on her party's ticket.
-
- Palin's highly successful debut on the national stage
Wednesday night at the GOP convention is sure to impact these numbers,
too. Her speech repeatedly highlighted her experience versus Obama's, something
she is expected to focus on from now until Election Day.
-
- Just a week ago 67% of voters told Rasmussen
Reports they didn't know enough about Palin, only the second woman ever
to be on a national political ticket, to comment on her. Heading into last
night's speech, however, 52% had a favorable opinion of Alaska's Governor.
-
- In the new survey, while 24% are more likely to vote
for Palin due to recent news coverage, 19% say the opposite and 54% say
the stories have no impact on their votes.
-
- Nationally, the Rasmussen daily Presidential Tracking
Poll showed Obama with a modest but expected bounce following
the close of his convention last week, but that is already being offset
by the bounce McCain is beginning to get from his party's gathering.
-
- Since McCain announced Palin as his running mate on Friday,
she has been subjected to an unprecedented wave of negative media stories,
many focused on her personal life and especially the pregnancy of her unmarried
17-year-old daughter. The focus of the coverage, especially in the blogosphere,
has even prompted Obama to distance himself from it.
-
- Republicans have responded angrily, and the media was
the target of numerous negative comments over the first two nights of the
GOP convention. Several aides to Hillary Clinton, who Obama defeated
for the Democratic presidential nomination, also have criticized the media
coverage for its sexist tone.
-
- In the new survey, although 85% say they are following
news stories about Palin at least somewhat closely, just five percent (5%)
think reporters are trying to help her with their coverage, while 35% believe
reporters are providing unbiased coverage.
-
- Eighty percent (80%) of Republicans say reporters are
trying to hurt the GOP vice presidential nominee, and 28% of Democrats
agree. Only six percent (6%) of Republicans and even fewer Democrats
(4%) think the reporting is intended to help her. Most Democrats (57%)
think the reporters are being unbiased, but just nine percent (9%) of Republicans
concur.
-
- Among unaffiliated voters, 49% say reporters are trying
to hurt Palin, while 32% say their coverage is unbiased. Only five percent
(5%) say reporters are trying to help her.
-
- Voters are more ambivalent about whether the media coverage
of Palin and her family reflects a double standard that treats women worse
than men.. Forty-six percent (46%) say it does, but 35% disagree. Most
Republicans and unaffiliated voters say the stories show the media's double
standard against women, but a majority of Democrats disagree.
-
- The findings, nevertheless, are troublesome for the embattled
news industry and parallel what voters said in surveys earlier this summer.
Sixty-eight percent (68%) of voters now believe most reporters try to help
the candidate they want to win, and 49% believe reporters are trying
to help Obama this year. Only 14% think they are trying to help McCain.
In another survey, 55% said media bias is a bigger problem for the
electoral process than large campaign donations.
-
- Although women voters by a 48% to 35% margin believe
the coverage of Palin reveals a double standard in the media, they continue
to support Obama more than men. Palin in her comments already has made
clear that one of her key missions is to lure women voters disaffected
by Clinton's defeat in the Democratic primaries to the McCain column.
|