Do the scandals matter? In US politics, most voters just see what they want to

The media often take a dominant role when it comes to political elections – but does it actually make a difference?

A recent study by research group Barna explores the biggest headlining scandals of the 2016 US election, and their impact on voters. It suggests party-polarised 'echo-chambers' were pervasive, and that evangelical Christians were amongst those who were most influenced by the election's biggest controversies.

Less than half (46 per cent) of voters thought the media had been 'fair and objective' in its election coverage. As the study notes however, 'Even so, other data indicates that bias has more sway than fairness, as groups already compelled to vote for Clinton brushed off many of her negative stories, yet were enraged by Trump's – and vice versa.

'This should not come as a surprise, perhaps, given how deeply entrenched America's political and faith segments have become. Unfavorable accounts of either candidate seem to have mostly bounced around their echo chambers, inciting increasing levels of rage toward a candidate they already disapproved of.'

Donald Trump himself was a frequent headline of the 2016 election – with many consistently shocked at the unorthodox political newcomer's rise to the Republican nomination and beyond. Several of his comments appeared to threaten his success, though evidently none really did.

The most significant Trump scandal, according to voters, was his comments about Mexican immigrants, which impacted 36 per cent of voters. Trump said of Mexican immigrants that 'They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.'

Nearly as many (33 per cent) cite Trump's proposed 'Muslim ban' as impactful. The third most significant (29 per cent) was Trump's boastings of his unwanted sexual advances against women, revealed in the now-infamous Hollywood Access videotape. Twenty-eight per cent of voters said they were majorly impacted by Trump's Insults and name-calling of his opponents such as 'crooked Hillary' and 'lyin' Ted' Cruz.

Consistently, Trump's campaigning headlines had a greater impact on Democrats than they did on Republicans, as the chart below shows. Barna's three Christian groups: notional Christians, evangelicals, and non-evangelical born-again Christians, were less likely to be affected by Trump's scandals – and all tended to support Trump.

Trump's boastings of sexual advances, which was the most or second-most impactful factor for non-Christian groups, was only significant for 5 per cent of evangelicals.

Hillary Clinton also had her share of election controversies, the most significant of which was her use of a private email server, impacting a third (33 per cent) of voters. Concerns about her benefiting from certain financial involvements (see below) impacted a quarter of voters. Twenty-two per cent were impacted by her support of late term, partial-birth abortion and describing half of Trump supporters as a 'basket of deplorables'.

Once again, a kind of confirmation bias appears to be at play – these scandals impacted on average just eight per cent of Democrats, compared to a third of Republicans (36 per cent) and Independents (33 per cent). Clinton's controversies majorly impacted half of evangelicals (50 per cent), more than any other group. The email server (65 per cent) and the abortion comments (53 per cent) were the most significant issues for evangelicals.

Election analyst George Barna notes the discrepancy between evangelical concern about Trump's comments on women (5 per cent were impacted) with their least significant Hillary controversy (41 per cent), suggesting 'their muted reaction in this case seems like a political rather than spiritually driven response'.

Barna's conclusion is blunt: 'Voter reaction to these negative stories was based more on whether they planned to support the candidate in question than on the basis of an objective response to the behavior in question.

'Democrats were willing to overlook Clinton's behavior but were horrified by Trump's; Republicans were forgiving of Trump's behavior but not Clinton's. Independent voters made up their minds about the scandals largely on the basis of their political ideology, with liberal Independents excusing the Clinton scandals and conservative Independents excusing the Trump scandals.

'In the end, the revelations about the unfortunate behavior of each candidate had a surprisingly limited impact on people's voting choices. The information served more to reinforce pre-existing voting plans than to help voters make an objective choice between the major-party candidates.'

While the world laments the rise of #FakeNews, does it even matter? Barna's study suggests that most in America will only see what they want to.

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