The Washington Post published the results of a recent survey on Thursday with an attention-grabbing headline: “In a new poll, half of Republicans say they would support postponing the 2020 election if Trump proposed it.”
The poll, conducted by two academics from June 5 through 20, focused on 650 Republican Americans, and asked them their beliefs about large-scale voter fraud, whether or not President Trump won the popular vote, and if they would support a delay of the 2020 election if President Trump or Republicans in Congress argued it was necessary to make sure only eligible American citizens could cast a ballot.
But GQ’s Jack Moore argued that it was journalistically irresponsible to conduct the poll in the first place — and argues it was done solely to create a click-y headline that would reverberate around the internet, like it did.
“If a Republican politician had been floating this idea of delaying the 2020 election, then it absolutely would be worth the consideration of polling it. But no one is,” Moore wrote, in part. “The journalist’s job is to disseminate information to the masses, but it’s important that said journalist takes that responsibility seriously…make no mistake, this does introduce this idea into our discourse in a real way.”
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