• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, October 25, 2024

"I love the poorly educated," Donald Trump famously said after polling showed they contributed to his winning the Nevada caucus during his 2016 presidential primary campaign. Turns out, he had -- and has -- good reason for that.

Voters who are poorly educated about the facts of key campaign issues -- including inflation, immigration and violent crime -- are much more likely to vote for Trump than Democratic rival Kamala Harris, according to new research released Thursday by Ipsos' political tracking team in what was their last monthly campaign briefing before the 2024 presidential election.

The Ipsos team, which characterized the race as currently being a toss-up, with Trump a marginal "favorite," showed a variety of polling and data points contributing to the strengths and weaknesses of both candidates, including the one above showing that voter ignorance of the facts is working in Trump's favor.

But it was another slide that helped explain why poorly educated voters prefer Trump vs. Harris: The primary source of the media they get their facts from (see below).

Americans who primarily get their facts from Fox News Channel and other conservative media outlets -- and/or social media -- were markedly more likely to incorrectly answer fact-based questions about inflation, the stock market, FEMA's hurricane aid, violent crime and illegal immigration.

The Ipsos team did not address the role active disinformation campaigns by foreign or domestic sources have played in the ignorance of voters, but at least we now know the role commercial news media has played.

It's one thing to have political or policy-based biases in news reporting, but it's quite another to promote "alternative facts."

Interestingly, it's not always just conservative news media outlets contributing to the problem, because it isn't just reporting -- or promoting -- false facts, but ignoring important fact-based ones.

Pro-democracy advocacy group Media Matters for America has done some great analyses of this in recent years, especially in the run-up to this year's election, and honestly, I should have reported more on its findings. But let me just cite two recent analyzes of big news organizations ignoring or downplaying former Trump Administration Chief of Staff, General John Kelly's recent on-the-record comments confirming Trump is a fascist who admires -- likely aspires to be -- Adolph Hitler.

That's something that should be front-page news, including The New York Times, which ironically broke that story. Alas, Media Matters found that has not been the case.

As for Fox News Channel's coverage, well, you can read that analysis here.

Our founding fathers said democracy depends on an informed electorate. They're probably rolling over right now.