
(RightWing.org) – For a long time, Fox News has been the place where conservatives prefer to find out what’s happening in the world. That link might be breaking down, though. It looks like it wasn’t actually Fox that Republicans trusted — it was Tucker Carlson.
In April, Fox News and Carlson parted ways, allegedly after internal emails released during the network’s defamation battle with Dominion Voting Systems revealed he’d criticized his bosses. At the time, it probably seemed like a sensible thing to do; when a big company has a problem with one employee, surely it isn’t the company that will suffer if that employee gets terminated, right? Incredibly, though, it looks like Fox might have miscalculated — badly.
NEW POLL: Tucker Carlson vs Fox News
Net favorability among Republicans:
• Tucker Carlson: +59%
• Elon Musk: +53%
• Fox News: -4%April 28 – May 2 | 404 likely R voters pic.twitter.com/gQAIDwdJpo
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) May 18, 2023
A recent poll by Change Research has found that, among Republicans, Fox News has a favorability rating of -4% — while Carlson’s is 59%. That gives the former host a massive 63-point lead over his old network. What Fox seems to have overlooked is that yes, it was popular among conservatives — but it appears Carlson was a big part of why it was popular, and now he’s gone.
Just to make it worse for Fox, the May 2 poll was surveying the most dedicated Republicans, the ones who are likely to vote in primaries. If this hard core of Conservatives doesn’t trust the network anymore, the link between Fox and Republicans could be broken for good.
Fox doesn’t seem to know what to do now. On May 17, it denied rumors that Sean Hannity would take over Carlson’s prime time slot and said it’s “still deciding” who will get the job. Meanwhile, Carlson himself has already announced plans to launch a new version of his show on Twitter (run by Elon Musk, who has a 53% favorability rating with Republicans). The network seems to have made a big mistake, and has no plans for recovery.
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