If there ever was any doubt that the opinion of voters on important factual issues facing our country is heavily influenced by their political leaning, a pair of Politico/Morning Consult polls released today has put that doubt to rest.
The title of the Politico story tells the tale: "Trump voters feel very differently about things now that he's won, our new poll shows." Remember how the sorry state of the economy was cited as a major factor in Trump's victory and Harris's defeat?
Well, three weeks have passed since the election. The economy is in virtually the exact same state now as it was on November 5. Yet Trump voters are feeling much better about the economy, and Harris voters are feeling worse about it. The Politico story says:
The economy was the single biggest issue for most voters going into Election Day, with 81 percent of voters in the preelection POLITICO|Morning Consult polling identifying it as “very important” to determining their vote choice. Trump voters put slightly more emphasis on the economy than Harris voters, but it was important across party lines.
What wasn’t the same for Trump and Harris supporters: What they thought of the preelection economy — and what they think now.
A week before the election, just 8 percent of self-identified Trump voters described the economy as on the “right track,” the polling found. But after Trump’s victory, that number swung to 28 percent — still a minority, but a substantial swing in a span of just a few weeks when economic conditions did not change dramatically.
I find this disturbing, though not surprising. We humans have a lot of difficulty seeing reality as it is, since how we'd like it to be all too often sways our perception.
Inflation, grocery prices, the cost of gasoline, interest rates -- these are quantitative. They are facts, not a matter of opinion. Yet elections aren't decided on the basis of facts, but on how voters feel about the facts.
And this poll shows that Trump voters looked upon the economy much more negatively prior to the election than after it, while Harris voters had the opposite reaction, albeit not as pronounced.
Trump voters also became a lot less concerned about voter fraud after Trump won, as did Harris voters to a lesser degree.
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