Fake News: Poll Shows Voters See Crisis At Border, Politico Seizes on Anti-Trump Data Point

Border Crisis Politico Poll

A Morning Consult/Politico poll was sent to supporters of President Donald Trump revealing a plurality of voters view the current situation at the U.S.-Mexico border as a national crisis, though Politico seized on the only anti-Trump data point in the polling.

The poll reveals 79 percent of Americans, including 71 percent of Democrats, identify a major problem at the border. A whopping 74 percent of Republicans view the problem as a crisis, and they are joined in this view by 18 percent of Democrats.

While the data indicates a plurality of Americans understand the escalating situation at the border, Politico seized on the data point they could most easily twist into an anti-Trump narrative for its article, Poll: Voters blame Trump, GOP for shutdown.

Politico reported:

A new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, conducted as the partial government shutdown reached its third week, reveals the scope of Trump’s challenge. A minority of voters agree with Trump’s description of a crisis of illegal immigration at the southern border. There’s only tepid support for the wall he wants to build there. Voters are opposed to shutting down the government to extract the funds for the wall’s construction — and more blame Trump and the GOP for the shutdown than Democrats.

Nearly half of voters, 47 percent, say Trump is mostly to blame for the shutdown, the poll shows, while another 5 percent point the finger at congressional Republicans. But just a third, 33 percent, blame Democrats in Congress.

While Politico fixates on the idea that Americans blame President Trump for the shutdown, they neglect to mention that the president took ownership of the shutdown in a nationally televised spat with Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi late last year.

“You want to know something? I’ll take it,” said President Trump in December, “If we don’t get what we want one way or the other, whether it’s through you, through military, through anything you want to call, I will shut down the government.”

President Trump continued, “I am proud to shut down the government. I will take the mantle.”

Underscoring Politico‘s cherry picking of data points, President Trump’s campaign sent a screen shot from the poll to supporters via SMS on Thursday.

As of Friday, January 11, President Trump broke the previous record for keeping the federal government shut down, previously set by Newt Gingrich in 1996.

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