ABC Gives 17 Seconds to Own Poll Showing ‘Democrats Sweating’ Before Midterms

The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll [1] is out and it has some sobering news for Democrats with less than three weeks to go until the midterm election. The poll found that President Obama’s approval rating has dropped to a new low of just 40 percent and the Democratic Party’s popularity is at its weakest point in the last 30 years.

Despite ABC News' own daily political newsletter "The Note" declaring that the network's poll to be such bad news that it “has Democrats sweating [2]," ABC’s Good Morning America gave it a mere 17 seconds on its Wednesday morning broadcast, buried amid a flurry of news briefs.

From Amy Robach’s brief:

And there’s trouble ahead for Democrats in the next month's midterm elections. According to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, President Obama's approval rating has plunged to a new low of 40 percent. That's the same as President Bush's approval rating back in 2006 before Democrats swept the midterm elections. 

Unsurprisingly, GMA felt the need to drag up liberals’ favorite punching bag, President George W. Bush, when discussing President Obama's low approval, but the ABC newsreader failed to provide the full results of her own network’s polling.

In the October 15 edition of "The Note," Michael Falcone, ABC News Deputy Political Director, explained why Democrats are really “sweating” heading into the midterm elections:

Barack Obama and his political party are heading into the midterm elections in trouble. The president’s 40 percent job approval rating in a new ABC News-Washington Post poll is the lowest of his career – and the Democratic Party’s popularity is its weakest in polling back 30 years, with more than half of Americans seeing the party unfavorably for the first time, according to ABC News Pollster Gary Langer. The Republican Party is even more unpopular. But benefiting from their supporters’ greater likelihood of voting, GOP candidates nonetheless hold a 50-43 percent lead among likely voters for U.S. House seats in the Nov. 4 election. These and other results are informed by an array of public concerns on issues from the economy to international terrorism to the Ebola virus, crashing into a long-running crisis of confidence in the nation’s political leadership.

While GMA gave only 17 seconds to their own polling, the network gave 58 seconds to a video of Michelle Obama encouraging people to eat more of her favorite vegetable, the turnip.

See relevant transcript below.

ABC’s Good Morning America
October 15, 2014

AMY ROBACH: And there’s trouble ahead for Democrats in the next month's midterm elections. According to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, President Obama's approval rating has plunged to a new low of 40 percent. That's the same as President Bush's approval rating back in 2006 before Democrats swept the midterm elections.