Sixty-eight years ago, the Chicago Tribune ran the banner headline "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN," which incorrectly proclaimed that Thomas Dewey, a Republican, had defeated incumbent President Harry S. Truman, the Democratic nominee.

With every opinion poll indicating that Truman would be defeated, the 1948 election was considered to be the greatest election upset in American history and the Tribune's headline made the print media the target of scorn and derision.That was until last Tuesday when Donald Trump shocked the world by winning the presidency, not to mention completely setting most polling, analyst and mainstream media types on their collective ear.The Dewey-Truman upset was more understandable, given the fact that polling was quite primitive. But how could so many be so wrong to miss the current signs of an upset in this digital age?Tracking polls had Hillary Clinton winning in every battleground state. The polling was so in the bag for Clinton that CNN senior media reporter Brian Stelter began his nightly newsletter asking, "What if the networks call the race for Clinton but Trump doesn't concede?" How will news organizations handle that?"Pollsters missed the tremendous turnout in rural America and Hillary Clinton's inability to energize the millennial and African-American voters.Larry Sabitow, professor of politics at the University of Virginia, said last week's election result is unique in our history and will be studied for generations.While the majority of pollsters were big losers in the election, so too was the media, which was a favorite target of Trump in the campaign. Gallup reported a majority of all registered voters (52 percent) believed that the media favored Clinton while another reputable pollster put the media bias toward Clinton at 75 percent.Polls on Election Day from the major news outlets, including The New York Times, CNN and The Washington Post, all predicted a solid win for Hillary Clinton. The New York Times' Upshot put Clinton's chances at 84 percent. According to Politico, Clinton reporters believed so strongly that she would win that they were making plans to move to Washington, D.C.NBC anchor Lester Holt said the election result was not only devastating for Democrats but also the media, which suffered as much a wipeout as the number of counties Clinton saw turn red on the nationwide electoral map.One analyst said the news organizations often spend more money on polling than they do on reporting. On the campaign circuit, Trump was beating the mainstream press like a drum and that was another part of his strategy that obviously worked.Two tracking polls that did predict a Trump victory were the USC/LA Times and the Investor's Business Daily/TIPP. IBD Commentary Editor Terry Jones said their polling responded to the enthusiasm Trump was generating at huge rallies which translated to his large voter turnout. The USC/LA Times tracking poll, gave Trump a 3.2 percentage point lead the day before the election.Conservative social commentator and author Wayne Allyn Root, American Thinker blogger Michael Finch and John Hinderaker, president of the Minnesota-based think tank Center of the American Experiment, were among the small number of social commentators and analysts who accurately predicted a Trump victory.In an entry on the blog Power Line in September, Hinderaker believed Trump would win because of a general mistrust by the American public of mainstream press he labeled pro-Clinton and the overall unlikability of the Democratic nominee.Root said in an opinion column published in October that he was "betting big on Donald Trump to win" and drew a parallel between Trump's being behind in the polls to when the British referendum to leave the European Union. Trump also cited the Brexit vote to rally blue collar supporters in his campaign.In late October, Finch argued that the Donald was appealing to voters in Middle America and had a disdain for Washington, D.C., politics."The middle of the country, already restive and suspicious of anything and everything that has to do with Washington, D.C., hears Trump railing against the corrupt system and how we need to 'clean house,' " Finch wrote.Hinderaker, Root and Finch were lone voices in the sea of liberal journalists to correctly gauge the amount of scorn the electorate had for insider politics, shortsighted pollsters and the legion of left-leaning journalists who were toadies for the Clinton campaign.Trump was also able to overcome Clinton's $380 million fundraising advantage, thanks to his simple vow to "drain the swamp" in Washington. As history looks back on the 2016 election, those words will prove to be a pivotal rally cry for the many disgruntled voters outside the capital beltway.By Jim Zbick |

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