An internal Trump campaign poll shows the president trailing Joe Biden in key battlegrounds – and is a real product despite Trump claiming such polls ‘don’t exist.’
Trump blasted the media and cited ‘fake polls’ this week, after reports that the internal campaign poll showed him trailing. Trump also claimed to be up in every state.
The poll results have now been unearthed, and the Trump campaign has confirmed its authenticity – although Trump’s campaign manager says the data are months old and may have been muddied by a key development in the Mueller probe.
Trump blasted the media and cited ‘fake polls’ this week, but his campaign has confirmed the existence of internal polling that had him trailing Joe Biden in battlegrounds – although the survey dates to March and is ‘ancient,’ according to the campaign
The poll shows Trump trailing Biden in key battlegrounds – including Pennsylvania, where Biden launched his campaign, Wisconsin, a state Trump pried from Democrats, and Florida, a state Trump carried in 2016, ABC News reported.
Biden led 55 to 39 in Pennsylvania, 51-41 in Wisconsin, with a 7-point lead in Florida. Trump’s lead was just two points in red state Texas.
‘These leaked numbers are ancient, in campaign terms, from months-old polling that began in March before two major events had occurred: the release of the summary of the Mueller report exonerating the President, and the beginning of the Democrat candidates defining themselves with their far-left policy message,’ Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale told ABC.
‘Since then, we have seen huge swings in the President’s favor across the 17 states we have polled, based on the policies now espoused by the Democrats. For example, the plan to provide free health care to illegal immigrants results in an 18-point swing toward President Trump,’ he added in a statement.
President Donald Trump’s attacked on Vice President Joe Biden have coincided with public polling that shows him performing well against Trump. Trump on Friday questioned Biden’s ‘mental capacity’
President Donald Trump’s attacked on Vice President Joe Biden have coincided with public polling that shows him performing well against Trump. Trump on Friday questioned Biden’s ‘mental capacity’
Earlier this week, Trump tore into ‘phony polls’ during a White House appearance where he nevertheless acknowledged that his campaign had done internal polling but said purported sources who leaked results ‘don’t exist.’
‘I think we’re going to win the state of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio and we won them all and now I have the same stuff,’ Trump said.
‘They’re giving out phony polls. No, these are polls that we have that nobody saw. We do very little polling because I’m not a huge believer in polling, you go out there and you fight and you don’t really need polls,’ Trump said.
At the time, he said the allegedly fake polls were put out by the ‘corrupt media.’
But Trump also seemed to confirm the existence of a poll when he said: ‘You need ideas more than polls, but we have some internal polling, very little, and it’s unbelievably strong. The strongest I’ve ever been, is exactly today,’ Trump said Wednesday.
Trump was also set off enough by the leak of poll results, which followed national polls showing Biden up, that he also teed of on Twitter Wednesday.
‘The Fake News has never been more dishonest than it is today,’ Trump wrote Wednesday morning on Twitter. ‘Thank goodness we can fight back on Social Media. There new weapon of choice is Fake Polling, sometimes referred to as Suppression Polls (they suppress the numbers). Had it in 2016, but this is worse,’ he vented.
‘The Fake (Corrupt) News Media said they had a leak into polling done by my campaign which, by the way and despite the phony and never ending Witch Hunt, are the best numbers WE have ever had. They reported Fake numbers that they made up & don’t even exist. WE WILL WIN AGAIN!’ Trump wrote.
Trump also denied a New York Times report that he instructed aides to lie about the results, although Press secretary Sarah Sanders did not refute the claim in her initial comments when asked about it.
She instead said, ‘I think the polling got it completely wrong in 2016. I don’t think it’s right now.’
A senior official with the Trump campaign told DailyMail.com that aides were not asked to lie about the survey, however.
After reviewing a new poll poll of 17 battlegrounds, Trump instructed his aides to deny him running behind his rival Biden in key states he needs to stitch together a 2020 win, the New York Times reported.
The poll was in the field March 15 through March 28 – a span that included the March 24 summary of the Mueller report by Attorney General Bill Barr. Such an event has a potential to roil poll data – although Democrats fumed that Barr’s letter put a positive spin on Mueller’s findings.
Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos this week polls showing Biden ahead ‘don’t exist.’
‘Nobody showed you those polls because those polls don’t exist, George. Those polls don’t exist. I’m losing in 15 out of 17 states? Those polls don’t exist,’ Trump said.
The Trump camp says more current polling tested the issues Democrats are running on, and Trump performs better.
“The President is correct that we have no current polls against defined Democrats – at all – that show him losing in any of the states we have tested. For example, the President leads in Florida by 8 points,’ he said.
A public May 22 Florida Atlantic poll showed Trump and Biden tied at 50-50.
Trump’s attacked on Vice President Joe Biden have coincided with public polling that shows him performing well against Trump. Trump on Friday questioned Biden’s ‘mental capacity.’