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A funny* thing happens once the mainstream media is shamed into getting off their liberally-biased rumps in order to report on a legitimate national news story:

More people are finally alerted to the issue, and begin researching it to draw their own conclusions.

That has certainly been the case on the issue of Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden.

Up until recently, polling data didn’t show any hit against Biden’s polling numbers after Reade told podcaster Katie Halper in late March about the alleged attack. After that, it took the New York Times almost 3 weeks to file their first report on Reade’s claim that Biden raped her in 1993.

After the NYT did, other national outlets began to follow suit – with some of them largely relying on what the Times found from their “investigation.”

Now that voters are hearing and reading more about the story, they are formulating opinions on the issue. So far, it looks like the Biden campaign’s strategy is backfiring.

Morning Consult polled a substantial number of voters on Biden last week and found that his overall favorability numbers have dropped, and that his support from women is now “falling underwater” (bolded emphasis added):

Tara Reade’s allegation that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her when he was a senator in 1993 is one of the few non-coronavirus stories to have broken through to voters amid the pandemic, and it appears to be taking a toll on the former vice president’s popularity.

A new Morning Consult poll found the former vice president’s net favorability — the share who view him favorably minus the share who view him unfavorably — has dropped 5 percentage points among registered voters since an April 20-26 poll conducted in the week before Biden forcefully denied Reade’s accusation on television amid heightened media coverage of the story. According to the new polling, conducted May 4-10 among 27,754 registered voters, 48 percent of voters view Biden unfavorably, compared with 43 percent who have positive views of the former vice president. Both polls had a 1-point margin of error.

The slide resulted in Biden’s net favorability among women falling underwater for the first time since the nadir of his primary campaign in February, with 46 percent viewing him unfavorably and 44 viewing him favorably. Taken together, it marks a 6-point drop in net favorability among women since the April 20-26 poll, driven by women ages 30 to 65 — the voting bloc that strategists on either side of the aisle credit with fueling Democratic victories in 2018 House races.

This is just one poll, of course, but it does give us our first look into where people are on the story right now.

It remains to be seen as to what type of toll these allegations will take on Biden long-term. If the story stays out there, it’s likely to further negatively impact his ratings. But if it goes away, people will forget about it not long after. Which is exactly why the media appears to have already moved on from it.

Because they must protect The Precious.

*By funny, I’m not talking about the literal sense of the word here, because this issue is definitely not funny.

(Hat tip: Daily Wire)