Left-leaning, liberal-media are placing much focus and emphasis on the coronavirus regarding two particular states—Florida and Texas. 

Here are the facts, according to the CDC website: 

In the last seven days (data taken from 07/23/20), Florida has reported 77,044 new cases, and Texas has reported 69,253 new cases of COVID-19. 

On the surface, this seems newsworthy.  It sounds like these two states are in dire straits, but the devil is in the details.

It is reported by the CDC that Florida and Texas actually have a lower concentration of the virus when compared to many other states.  That is, though there are many reported cases, there are fewer virus-cases per 100,000 people in Florida and Texas.  The CDC numbers report that Florida has 1,760.2 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 people.  There are actually four states with a higher concentration of COVID-19 cases than Florida.  As for Texas, it has 1,225.1 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 people.  There are 19 states/D.C. with a higher concentration of COVID-19 cases than Texas!

To understand what this lower concentration means, consider Texas.  If there was a group 100,000 people in Texas, 1,225.1 of them are infected with COVID-19.  Compare this to a state with a higher concentration of infection, than Texas such as Louisiana.  Louisiana’s rate of COVID19 concentration is reported by the CDC to be 2181.3 per 100,000 people, almost twice as high as Texas.  It is obvious that the COVID19 virus spreads when those infected are near others who are not infected, hence the need for social distancing.  Based on the numbers, if the concentrations of the virus are lower in Texas than in other states, such as Louisiana, then there is less opportunity for infected individuals to be around uninfected individuals.  Put simply, the virus is more prevalent in many others states that it is in Texas and Florida. 

This lower prevalence may be being reflected in the number of deaths occurring in Florida and Texas.  Again, referring to CDC numbers, there are seven states/D.C. with total deaths higher than Florida, and there are nine states with total death rates higher than Texas.  Therefore, when compared to 16 others states and D.C., Florida and Texas are not as bad off as the left-media presents them as being.  Left-media seems eager to disregard the lower concentrations of COVID=19, and the lower death rates, that emerge in Florida and Texas when compared to 16 other states.  This is relevant to the 2020 presidential election.

To win the presidency in the United States a candidate needs 270 electoral votes.  Florida has 29 electoral votes and Texas has 38.  Obviously, that’s a total of 67, or 12.5% of the electoral vote coming from just those two states.  Add to this the fact that California has 55 electoral votes, and this makes California, Texas, and Florida the three states with the greatest number of electoral votes.  Those three states have a combined total of 122 electoral votes, or almost 1/2 (45.2%) of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

As reported by the website 270 to Win, California has given its 55 electoral votes to the Democrat presidential candidate in the last seven presidential elections.  This same website credits California as “a reliably Democratic State” citing the influx of the Latino population.  If the last seven presidential elections are an indicator of what California will do in 2020, then it would stand to reason that in the 2020 presidential election California will again cast its electoral votes for the democratic candidate.  That would mean 55 electoral votes going to a Democrat and gained from only one state.  No other state has that many electoral votes to cast—not even close.

Florida and Texas combined have more than 55 electoral votes.  Moreover, the 270 to Win website reports that in the last 7 presidential elections, Florida cast its 29 electoral votes for democratic presidential candidates 3 times, and for the republican presidential candidates 4 times.  It seems very likely that in 2020 Florida could go either way—either democrat or republican.  Texas seems to present an even greater threat to democrats.  In the last seven presidential elections, Texas has cast its 38 electoral votes for the Republican presidential candidate each time—7 out of 7.  This means that with California being predicted as a “sure thing” for democrats, Florida and Texas are key states that could decide the election. 

Left-leaning media knows that Florida and Texas need to be won by Democrats if Democrats hope to gain control of the country, and this same media is scared.  They are working diligently for the Democratic Party.  One only needs to watch left-leaning, liberal media (e.g., CNN) to realize that the left works hard to discredit President Trump.  Some individuals, such as Mark Levin, have made strong cases supporting the idea that left-media not only works to sabotage the republicans and support the democrats, but also that such actions by the left-media are calculated and deliberate.

CNN reported in an online article dated July 7, 2020, “Cases are skyrocketing in Florida, Texas and Arizona”—Skyrocketing!  Another CNN online article dated July 7, 2020 stated, “56 Florida Hospital ICUs have Hit Capacity.”  On July 13, 2020 CNN’s online article stated, “Florida has More COVID-19 than Most Countries in the World.” Wow!  If I hadn’t been reading and watching the other side of the story coming from right-media, and doing my research with the CDC, I might begin to believe that President Trump was losing control, letting the U.S. suffer, and we are all doomed!   

We don’t see left-leaning, liberal media outlets publishing articles with headlines reading, “Texas—Lower Concentration of COVID-19 Infections than 19 other States” or “Seven States/Territories with higher COVID19 Death Rates than Florida.”  Headlines like these might indicate that Trump is handling the COVID=19 Crisis adequately.  CNN and their “Mr./Ms. Potato Head” Common-tators (pun intended), reporters, editors, and writers are not working to educate the U.S. population with neutral, unbiased information about Florida and Texas, the two key states in the 2020 presidential election.  However, they are working to campaign for the left, for the Democrats. They are working to push a non-Trump, non-Republican, pro-panic agenda, and they are doing it to sabotage President Trump and the Republican Party.  They are terrified of the prospect of 4 more years of Trump, and they are doing their damndest to create headlines and articles to suggest that our president is failing the country, and therefore needs to be replaced with left-thinking democrats and their left-thinking socialist ideologies.

John R. Anderson is a Licensed Mental Heath Counselor.

Image credit: Josh Hallett, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0