OPINION:
MSNBC had a meltdown on Tuesday when CNN released its latest presidential poll, showing Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton by 2 percentage points in a four-way race.
So what did they do?
Instead of having their pundits talk about the poll as an outlier (it could very well be), or take out the map like Barack Obama’s advisers used to do, showing all of her different paths to victory, the cable outlet instead chose to skew the poll — in favor or Mrs. Clinton!
MSNBC altered CNN’s poll based on the 2012 electorate — not the current one — which showed Mrs. Clinton with a 46-to-42 percent lead on Mr. Trump.
The move was immediately met with blowback from professional pollsters and pundits alike.
“Polling should be like driving a car. Media should have a license to talk about it. @MSNBC ’unskewing’ polls now is journalism gone awry,” wrote Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney ’04 presidential campaign and current ABC News political analyst on Twitter.
“’Unskewing’ polls is just as asinine when MSNBC does it as when Breitbart does it,” wrote Frank Luntz a focus-group leader and political consultant.
And Kristen Soltis Anderson, a pollster wrote: “Like I said: definitely the week to start subscribing to @ThePollsters. We’re hitting peak ’poll madness,’ ” of MSNBC’s decision to alter CNN’s poll.
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