The Paris Attacks Had Zero Impact on the Republican Race

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Here’s the most recent Pollster aggregate of the GOP primary contest. Donald Trump’s scheme to prove that Republican voters are the most gullible people on the planet continues apace. (Seriously folks: you all have blowhards in your life, don’t you? You know what they’re like, and you wouldn’t trust one of them to be dogcatcher, let alone president. Surely you recognize Trump as one of the same breed?)

But enough of that. The reason I’m putting up the latest standings is this: despite the maunderings of various pundits, it looks like the Paris attacks had exactly zero impact on the race. All five of the leading candidates were on a trajectory before the attacks, and they continued that trajectory very precisely afterward. There’s not so much as a blip in the polling data.

Debates seem to have an effect on Trump and Carson. Nothing much seems to have had an effect on the others. They’ve been on cruise control for the past month. But the Paris attacks? Whatever you felt about the candidates before, apparently they made you feel exactly the same way afterward, except more.

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We were built for times like these

Russian bots are impersonating us. Trump and his allies want to silence us. AI wants to (and does!) steal our content. The list goes on. But with 50 years of experience, we know we were built for this moment: We’re ready to keep diving deep and uncovering the truth, then getting that to you right here, completely accessible and never behind a paywall.

While our work is free to read, watch, and listen to online, it’s incredibly costly to make. Court documents, travel, research: It all adds up. Because we’re a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on reader support to fund our investigations. Will you stand with us in these extraordinary times, as headlines clamour for our attention and disinformation is rampant? We can’t get the truth out without you.

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