By Kevin Tober
Editor’s note. This is excerpted from Newsbusters and is reposted with permission.
During the panel segment on NBC’s Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd openly panicked over the Republican Party’s lead in his network’s poll of the generic congressional ballot on Sunday, calling it a “huge red flag,” and remarked how the GOP hasn’t led in NBC’s generic congressional ballot poll since September 2014. …
Todd jumped in and touched on one of the questions in the NBC poll which showed thirty-eight percent of voters blame Biden for rising inflation. Todd attempted to put a positive spin on the abysmal numbers for the President:
The most generous way you can look at it, Susan, is, well, only thirty-eight percent blame President Biden and a majority blame something else, but that’s about all you can do. What’s interesting is that only six percent blame the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and that was a specific thing the President said.
USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page replied with the truth that “Inflation was becoming a problem before Russia invaded Ukraine,” and pointed out “three of the last four Presidents have lost control of the House of Representatives in their first midterm election.”
Then came the sobering moment for Todd when he read the key finding of the poll:
I’m going to put up our generic ballot test here. The public’s going to look at it, you’ll see 46-44, Republicans up by two, oh that’s not, that’s a coin flip. This is the first time we’ve had Republicans leading in the generic ballot in our polls since September of 2014, eight years ago. There is always a little bit of a democratic add because Democrats are more packed in more districts here. This is a huge red flag!
NBC News Washington correspondent Yamiche Alcindor agreed begrudgingly that “it’s a huge red flag, and it’s coupled with the idea that people are blaming President Biden’s policies for inflation.” She noted that this is part of the reason voters are saying they trust Republicans more to control congress and be better stewards of the economy. “That’s going to be a hard thing for Democrats to overcome and to message about,” Alcindor worried.
Todd ended the segment correctly noting that gas prices and inflation is “a regressive tax. It impacts people harder farther down the socioeconomic ladder.”