CBS reported Barron's study “might encourage Republicans,” but failed to note inconsistent methodology, magazine's praise for GOP control of Congress

Written by Simon Maloy

Published

CBS' Tony Guida reported that "[a] new study of the election by Barron's magazine might encourage Republicans. It concludes the GOP will retain control of both houses." But while saying that “anti-Bush, anti-Iraq sentiment” might trump money this year, Guida did not note inconsistencies in the publication's claims themselves or the publication's clear preference for a GOP victory.


During a report on the midterm elections for the October 22 edition of the CBS Evening News, correspondent Tony Guida reported: “A new study of the election by Barron's magazine might encourage Republicans. It concludes the GOP will retain control of both houses.” Guida noted that Barron's based its analysis solely on the amounts of money available to individual candidates, and that "[w]hile money often is the plasma of politics, this year, Democrats may not have to worry about being outspent." However, CBS did not report inconsistencies in Barron's claims -- as Media Matters for America noted, the studies Barron's has released during the past three election cycles have each had a different methodology. Moreover, CBS did not note the magazine's clear indications in the 2004 and 2006 reports of a preference for a GOP-controlled Congress.

For its 2006 study, Barron's claimed that it looked solely at “which candidate had the largest campaign war chest” and that it “ignore[d] the polls.” Barron's also touted this methodology: “Is our method reliable? It certainly has been in the past. Using it in the 2002 and 2004 congressional races, we bucked conventional wisdom and correctly predicted GOP gains both years.” As Media Matters for America noted, however, the methodologies for its 2002 and 2004 studies examined the sources of campaign money -- as opposed to just the size of a candidate's “war chest” -- and included polling data, voter trends, newspaper reports, and other factors that were not listed as part of the 2006 study's methodology, or, as with the polling data, were specifically rejected. Also, the 2006 report specifically noted that the magazine used its “campaign war chest” methodology to predict the outcome “in almost every race [emphasis added]” -- raising the question of which races the magazine's purportedly consistent methodology was not applied to.

Moreover, in the 2004 and 2006 reports, Barron's clearly stated that the stock market prefers a Republican majority in both houses of Congress. Barron's wrote positively of the Republican majority that it was predicting in 2004 for the salutary effect GOP control would purportedly have on the stock market. In 2006, it suggested that the only way to protect against stock-market stagnancy or collapse is for Republicans to retain control of at least one house.

From the October 22 broadcast of The CBS Evening News:

GUIDA: A new study of the election by Barron's magazine might encourage Republicans. It concludes the GOP will retain control of both houses. That analysis based on which campaign has the most money. While money often is the plasma of politics, this year, Democrats may not have to worry about being outspent. That's how strong the anti-Bush, anti-Iraq sentiment seems to be.