Poll: 60 Percent of Trump Voters See Media as ‘Enemies’ to People Like Them

Supporters of Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump wait for the can
AP Photo/Carlos Osorio
Katie McHugh

A HuffPost/YouGov poll released Wednesday found that 83 percent of Trump voters believe the media is hostile towards them—with 60 percent saying the media is “enemies to people like” them.

The Huffington Post reports that’s an uptick from February, when 51 percent of Trump voters thought the media is “an enemy to people like you.”

Well over half, or 68 percent, of Hillary Clinton voters say media are an “ally” or friendly to people like them.

(HuffPost/YouGov)

Men are more likely to see the press as hostile to them, with nearly half, or 49 percent, saying media is unfriendly or “enemies” to people like them, including 28 percent who agreed media outlets were “enemies to people like you.” Forty percent of women also saw the media as biased against them.

Over half, or 57 percent, of Americans aged 65 and older, said the media is “unfriendly to people like you” or “enemies to people like you,” as did 35 percent of respondents between 18 and 29.

Black respondents had a more positive view of media: 45 percent believed the media were allies to or friendly to people like them, compared to 26 percent who said the media is “unfriendly to people like you” or “enemies to people like you.” Half, or 50 percent, of white respondents thought the media was unfriendly or outright enemies of people like them, while 29 percent viewed media as friendly or allies. Only 18 percent of Hispanic respondents thought the media was positively inclined towards them, while 39 percent thought the opposite, and 43 percent were unsure.

Only 12 percent of Republicans saw the media as friendly towards them, while 44 percent believed the press was an enemy and 68 percent said the press was opposed to them overall. Meanwhile, 60 percent of Democrats thought media was “friendly to people like you” or “allies to people like you.” Only seven percent thought the press was an enemy.

Overall, 25 percent of respondents said media were “enemies to people like” them, while another 19 percent said they were “unfriendly,” for a total of 44 percent who believed the media was hostile towards them. Only 30 percent said media were friendly to or allies of people like them.

(HuffPost/YouGov) 

Coverage of Trump’s brief time in office has been relentlessly hostile. A Media Research Center (MRC) study released in early March found 88 percent of Trump administration coverage from ABC, CBS, and NBC was negative, with “anchors and reporters often [injecting] their own anti-Trump editorial tone into the coverage.” A study released by by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center in May found 93 percent of CNN and NBC’s coverage of the forty-fifth president was negative, as well as 52 percent of Fox News’ coverage and 70 percent of the Wall Street Journal‘s: “Trump has received unsparing coverage for most weeks of his presidency, without a single major topic where Trump’s coverage, on balance, was more positive than negative, setting a new standard for unfavorable press coverage of a president.”

As Breitbart Senior Editor-At Large Joel Pollak reports: “The media, furious that Trump defied them by winning the election, denied him any semblance of a ‘honeymoon’ in office… Trump has never been given the same chance—or any chance—to carry out his agenda. And for months, Trump voters have watched the media fawning over the hysterical opposition, praising the ‘pussyhat’ protesters and downplaying the extremists in their ranks.”

Trump has frequently bashed the “fake news media” for attacking him and allegedly fabricating sources to damage his agenda on Twitter.

Pollsters questioned 1,000 U.S. citizens from May 26 to May 27. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

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