Psychotherapist Details What Fox News' Jesse Watters Got Wrong in His Election Forecast
Key Takeaways
- •Jesse Watters entered Tuesday's Fox News broadcast predicting no 'blue wave,' relying on data he had hand-picked himself, according to Alternet.
- •During the 8 p.m. hour, Watters acknowledged his forecast was wrong, saying 'It's not a red wave' and expressing doubt that $5,000 checks would come.
- •Psychotherapist Elliott Connie said Watters exhibited confirmation bias, favoring information that reinforced his beliefs while discounting contradictory evidence.
- •Connie argued Republicans miscalculated by causing widespread economic pain, including higher gas and grocery prices, making it psychologically difficult for hurting voters to support them.
- •Connie concluded that these missteps led to massive Republican losses and showed that voters will no longer back policies tied to human suffering.
According to a report from Alternet, Fox News co-host Jesse Watters entered Tuesday's broadcast clinging to his own hand-picked data to claim there would be no so-called "blue wave" — a term widely used in U.S. election coverage for an anticipated surge of Democratic victories. The segment took a notable turn when Watters had to confront how wrong that forecast had proved, and what he would say to viewers about it.
"It's not a red wave. I don't think we're gonna get our $5,000 checks," Watters said during the 8 p.m. hour. "Democrats had a good night. It's not a great night. That remains to be seen. But if it is a great night you're going to leave me alone, right?"
Elliott Connie, a psychotherapist with twenty years of clinical practice who offers short, easy-to-understand analyses of the brain and how people think, argued that Watters was just as guilty as other Fox News viewers of confirmation bias — the tendency to favor information that reinforces what one already believes while discounting evidence that contradicts it — describing him as living in a silo of delusion.
Connie said Watters' miscalculation stemmed largely from his denial of every ounce of data available. He added that Watters and other Fox hosts also neglect to understand the goodness of the American people.
"The miscalculation that the Republicans made is they did not understand that human beings are inherently good," Connie said. "We genuinely don't like watching each other suffer, for the most part, and we don't want to suffer ourselves. When you start saying we're going to secure the border, it's very easy for people to get behind that and say, 'Rah! Rah! We love it, we love it.' But then when there are videos of unarmed people being executed in broad daylight, it causes us to be like, 'Wait a minute. We didn't know it would look like this.'"
That dynamic, he explained, makes it easier for people to say, "I can't vote for this because I feel bad. I feel wrong to vote for more of that."
The more significant miscalculation, Connie said, was that Republicans caused pain throughout the entire American citizenry, touching the economy, gas prices, grocery prices and more. People, he noted, were hurting when they went to the polls.
"So when you ask people to go into the polls while hurting and vote for a thing that they think is going to hurt them more, that's a very difficult psychological obstacle to overcome, and they couldn't overcome it," he said.
Republicans, he added, failed to pay attention to humanity and to the good nature of most people.
"As a consequence, it led to massive losses," Connie concluded. "So, I hope that we all learn a lesson here that America, you can have whatever policy you want and people can vote for whatever policy they want, but we can no longer vote for and support human suffering."
The exchange reflects a familiar dynamic in cable news, where prime-time hosts routinely stake their credibility on election forecasts — and where an on-air reckoning with a missed call can become a storyline of its own.
His commentary was featured in a video shared on YouTube.
