Fox News election night anchor Brit Hume dismissed the single top concern of 50% of voters surveyed by the network – democracy – as a “BS issue,” but warned that the numbers as they are could spell bad news for Donald Trump on Tuesday night.
“Fully half of all voters said the future of democracy is the most important factor in their vote. That’s a big number, I mean, that’s a lot of people worried about that,” Hume told co-anchor Bret Baier.
NBC News’ exit polls also found that democracy was the top issue on voters’ minds, as did ABC News’ polls.
The commentator conceded the numbers were bad news for Trump, who the Harris campaign has called a threat to democracy after he attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 race, an effort for which he still faces multiple criminal prosecutions.
“Now, Trump gets some of those voters, but 60% of them or more are going for Harris. I think that issue, democracy, is about one thing: about Trump and fear of Trump,” Hume said.
But Hume gave his co-anchors something to cope with, adding that Trump has historically been able to clear the electoral hurdle of refusing to commit to respecting votes. Trump on Tuesday claimed he would concede if he lost in a “fair election.”
“As you know, the Trump factor in this race is, is he able to overcome the resistance to him, which has been so dominant in three previous cycles. And that’s what that vote is about,” he added.
But the anchor still managed to downplay voters’ concern, waving off Trump’s assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6 as a “BS issue.”
“In many ways, it's a BS issue when you think about it . . .Go back to January 6, which was supposed to be the moment when we all thought we should fear this, that our democracy was fragile,” Hume said. “It's ridiculous. I mean, our democracy is pretty sturdy. Our checks and balances worked. The thing was over in a matter of hours. And yet, here we are, it's still a factor.”
Since Jan. 6, 2021, multiple of those checks, including the Supreme Court and an impeachment effort in Congress, failed to or delayed holding Trump to account over the plot to toss out election results.
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Play along on Election Night with Salon's Election Night Bingo Cards, available to download at salon.com!
