CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said on Friday that Democrats and the media attacking Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio as “weird” is undoubtedly hurting his popularity.
Corporate news networks and Democrats have repeatedly used this term to paint former President Donald Trump and Vance as “weird,” with CNN and MSNBC using the term over 160 times each on Monday alone, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.
Enten on “CNN News Central” said the “attack” seems to be “working” as Google searches for “weird,” relating to Vance, have been increasing, and his favorability is uniquely poor among vice presidential nominees.
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“So this is Google searches for weird. This is compared to the last three months. Look at this, it’s up 22%, my god, over the last week,” Enten told host Kate Bolduan. “How about over the last three days, searches for weird are up 32%. And of course ‘weird’ gets searched all the time … When you see these kind of giant jump, you go to yourself. ‘wait a minute, something is definitely driving this. People are interested in the word ‘weird’ and the question of course, Kate Bolduan is why are they interested in the word weird?”
“Topics increasingly searched with ‘weird’ on Google, these are the things that are increasingly linked to searches with ‘weird,’” he added. “Look at that, Tim Walz who you mentioned who started that tagline. How about make America great again, how about the GOP? How about J.D. Vance? So the fact is you’re seeing these increases in searches for the word ‘weird’ and then the topics that are increasingly searched with the word ‘weird’ are all political, all of which are attack lines … It shows that it is penetrating the zeitgeist and actually shows that it’s a rare political attack that people are looking up online.”
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Since Trump picked Vance as his running mate on July 15 during the first day of the Republican National Convention, interviews and speeches he gave before winning his Senate campaign resurfaced, including his criticism of prominent Democrats who didn’t have children, including Vice President Kamala Harris, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.
Vance mocked Democratic women by describing them as a “bunch of childless cat ladies” in a 2021 interview on Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson’s former show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
“Look, he was already the least liked VP nominee coming out of a convention, you see that AP-NORC earlier this month, mid-July, minus five points, the ABC News-Ipsos poll, minus six points. But look at this week … we’re able to show in very recent polling data, look at J.D. Vance’s net favorable rating in AP-NORC dropping by eight points to -13 points,” Enten said. “How about ABC News Ipsos dropping to -15 points? So it seems that the the attack lines against J.D. Vance are working. And one of those big attack lines, of course, is the idea that he is weird. And it’s definitely being increasingly searched with his name and obviously other things associated with Republicans.”
“If you look at folks like Sarah Palin, you look at folks like Dan Quayle, folks who went on to sort of VP infamy, all of them had net favorability ratings at plus 10 or better,” Enten added. “The fact that he is so disliked, so early on, to me that suggests that there’s something unique about J.D. Vance. And it’s not just the weird thing, but I think the weird attack line is absolutely having an impact. Folks just have a visceral dislike for him as we see in these numbers right here.”
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.