Springfield, Ohio – Donald Trump repeatedly rages that the media is biased against him, putting claims of press prejudice at the center of his campaign for president. Most voters — and not just those who are backing the Republican nominee — agree with him, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.
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Overall, 56 percent of likely voters say the media is biased against Trump, just 5 percent say it’s biased in his favor and 37 percent say coverage is mostly balanced.
Eighty-seven percent of Trump’s supporters see the media as biased against him, and even Hillary Clinton’s supporters are more likely to see bias against Trump than bias in his favor, 30 percent to 8 percent. Sixty percent of Clinton’s supporters see no bias in either direction.
“The majority of the coverage is very biased — some of the stuff Clinton has done doesn’t even get reported on,” said Julius Villarreal, a 32-year-old Trump supporter from Houston. “Where is Benghazi? She thinks she’s above the law, and the media is definitely complicit in helping her get away with it.”
By contrast, 51 percent say the media is biased in Clinton’s favor and just 8 percent see media bias against her, while 39 percent say the media is mostly balanced. Sixty-seven percent of Clinton’s supporters say media coverage of their candidate is balanced, while 87 percent of Trump supporters say the media is biased in her favor.
“Hey, it’s record-setting bad treatment, what I’m getting,” Trump said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Thursday. “It’s the greatest pile-on in American history. I go to rallies, and they’re starting to hate the media because they see it’s all a big lie. Not all, but a lot of it’s a big lie.”
Trump’s love-hate relationship with the media has been a major part of his campaign.
No candidate in recent history has ever utilized the media so effectively, winning coverage worth billions of dollars as he swamped opponents in the crowded Republican primary. In the early months of that campaign, the former reality TV star had a knack for both courting reporters and saying something outrageous — guaranteeing he’d receive around-the-clock coverage.
His tone shifted once he entered the general election against Clinton, the Democratic nominee. Republicans have long accused the media of possessing a liberal bias, but Trump took those attacks to a new level.
He routinely exhorts the crowds at his rallies to boo the journalists who travel with his campaign. He takes to Twitter to denounce what he sees as unfair coverage. And he attacks reporters, at times by name, when he doesn’t like their questions.
Earlier this month, Trump derisively dismissed a reporter as “a sleazebag” for asking a question about women who have accused Trump of sexual assault.
“These people are among the most dishonest people in the world, the media,” Trump said at a rally in Florida this week, pointing to the reporters at the back of the event. “They are the worst.”