The California governor described White House reporters as ‘sycophants’
California Governor Gavin Newsom criticized the media for what he described as overly deferential coverage of Donald Trump, characterizing reporters in Oval Office press briefings as “sycophants.”
The Democratic governor — widely seen as a potential contender for the 2028 presidential race — made the remarks during a Sunday interview with progressive commentator Jack Cocchiarella.
Cocchiarella pressed Newsom on what he framed as “hesitancy” within the White House press corps to scrutinize certain subjects: namely, the 80-year-old president’s health.
“You see these press conferences in the Oval Office,” the governor replied. “You maybe have one or two reasonable reporters. They ask a question; there’s no chance for a follow-up. And then it’s seven sycophants from news outlets.”
We don’t know the why, but it was a big swing among men of color:
https://navigatorresearch.org/2024-post-election-survey-racial-analysis-of-2024-election-results/
Without some very careful probing via polls, getting to the why is going to be harder, most likely. Not too many people are just going to be absolutely candid about being sexist.
I have some insight as to why. As someone who canvassed, who actively spoke to Hispanic activists for Trump in person no less. Though I’ll leave that alone considering its anecdotal nature unless you’re interested.
Statistically, these groups – men across the board – are significantly less educated and thus susceptible to misinformation. They were explicitly targeted from GamerGate and onward.
If you break down exit-polling, you’ll find a key factor in predicting how someone voted was in fact their education attainment and less so their gender or skin color.
Does that mean they were less likely to vote for Harris? Yes, but it also means they’d be less likely to vote for any Democrat. More importantly, those who are actual bigots voting on pretenses of skin color or sex were core maga already.
Put it another way: An Old White Guy Joe Biden was polling worse than Harris. At the same time, Reuters polling has always shown Michelle Obama – female person of color – to poll higher against Trump than literally anyone. Ever.
I’d be curious as to how the numbers might shake out if it is for a generic male candidate and a generic female candidate…again, might be hard to determine, as people are not as likely to be honest about it.
The Navigator Research numbers here are worth scrutinizing. They claim Biden won Hispanic men by 34 points in 2020. That’s a massive outlier. AP VoteCast, which surveyed 110,000+ voters, found Biden won Hispanic men by roughly ~10-12 points. Other sources like Pew and Edison exit polls show similar single-digit to low-double-digit margins, not 34 points. A 35-point shift would be historically unprecedented.
Edison Research (official NEP exit poll provider): Biden won Latino men 59%-36% (+23) in 2020.
https://www.edisonresearch.com/latino-male-voters-shift-toward-trump-in-2024-election/
Pew Research Center (validated voter study): Biden won Hispanics overall 59%-38% (+21) in 2020.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory
AP VoteCast: “About 6 in 10 Latino men went for Biden” in 2020 (~60%, roughly +20 margin).
https://apnews.com/article/election-harris-trump-women-latinos-black-voters-0f3fbda3362f3dcfe41aa6b858f22d12
The key weakness is that Navigator uses recalled 2020 vote data from a 2024 survey and their 34-point figure is contradicted by every major contemporaneous survey of the 2020 electorate.