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Corporate media’s continued push on Puerto Rican voters included a telling tie-in to an alleged “granny gap” within a controversial poll.

(Video Credit: CNN)

Joining “CNN This Morning” from Pennsylvania Monday, Mark McKinnon, a former adviser to President George W. Bush and late Arizona Sen. John McCain, furthered the narrative that former President Donald Trump was responsible for a comedian’s joke about Puerto Rico.

Anchor Kasie Hunt prompted the former GOP strategist as he was welcomed on saying, “You spent some time in Pennsylvania in the last couple of days and you were particularly talking to Puerto Rican voters there. What did you pick up on the ground?”

“Yeah, I’m here on the ground in Philly and I’ve been here for most of the week and will be through the election. So, I think you had some really unique insights last week when we were talking about the garbage thing and Puerto Rico. And it really got my attention,” he began. “So, we looked into it a little bit more and went to an [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)] rally yesterday. And I want to tell you, you were right.”

Plowing ahead with the notion that supporters of the radical Squad member would somehow be representative of the broader population, McKinnon continued, “First of all… every Puerto Rican in Pennsylvania has heard about the garbage comment. They all know about it. Two, they’re all pissed about it! I mean, again, you were right. I mean, there’s this real pride thing in Puerto Rico, and there’s like nothing more that Trump could have done to offend Puerto Ricans than to describe their country as garbage.”

He went on to suggest even Trump voters had turned to support Vice President Kamala Harris as corporate media leveled responsibility for comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke at Madison Square Garden, readily disavowed by the campaign, while ignoring that President Joe Biden had referred to Trump supporters as garbage.

Further detracting from his own analysis, McKinnon turned to questionable polling released by the Des Moines Register/Mediacom courtesy of Selzer & Co. President J. Ann Selzer which suggested a victory for Harris in Iowa.

“Harris is winning that number by 35 points,” he said of women over 65 years old. “And, just to put that in context, when Trump won in 2016, he won women over 65 by nine. When Biden won in 2020, he won them by 13. So she’s winning by 22 more points than Biden won in 2020.”

“That is a huge number,” said McKinnon.

Meanwhile, political insiders in Iowa had eviscerated the unlikely poll results, and even CNN has challenged the findings as commentator Kristen Soltis Anderson told Dana Bash, “So I’ve also, in my own data, seen senior women trending a little more Democratic. I don’t think it is to the extent that was found in the Selzer poll. But she’s a great pollster, even good pollsters sometimes have outliers and that is why I think what David Axelrod said was so important about uncertainty.”

Furthering his own conclusions, McKinnon pointed to the large percentage of Puerto Ricans in the Keystone State as he argued, “I mean, in a race that could be decided by a margin of one or two percent, if you have seven percent of a population who are all on fire because of this issue… that could change the outcome of this election just among Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania, which I think is incredible!”

Hunt added, “Yeah, no… it’s certainly been a subject of text messages among the Puerto Rican members of my family, which is, I think, kind of part of what, what sparked this for me.”

Kevin Haggerty
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