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There are few things Donald Trump likes more than sharing polls that show him in the lead. Unfortunately for him, these are much more difficult to come by now that Vice President Kamala Harris has replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket.
In poll after poll, she is performing much better than Biden did. In fact, Harris has pulled ahead of Trump according to statistician Nate Silver, whose predictive model takes into account many different polls and also considers their reliability.
To anybody watching the contest between the two, it is also quite clear that the vice president has the momentum, riding weeks of positive press and a wave of Democratic support that has translated into unprecedented fundraising totals.
This dynamic is reflected in a poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College, which was released on Saturday and shows that Harris is leading Trump by 4 points among likely voters in the crucial swing states Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
One of the survey’s findings is that vice presidential candidate JD Vance, who was supposed to help Republicans in just these states, is broadly disliked there.
Just five weeks ago, the same poll showed the former president dominating Biden by 6 percent nationally.
Back then, Trump loved the results. Now, not so much.
So, what do you do if you work for a man who hates bad news but loves good polls?
Will you convince him to be less weird, try to appeal to moderate voters, or make some other change in the way you run the race to get back on track?
Obviously not.
If you are Tony Fabrizio, the chief pollster of the Trump campaign, you only have one choice: badmouth the polls that show that the former president is losing.
On Saturday, he and Tim Saler, Trump’s chief data consultant, sent a memo to senior campaign officials explaining that Trump is doing just great and polls that show him trailing are biased.
According to them, the swing state surveys “have dramatically understated President Trump’s support both among all registered voters and in their likely-voter model.”
As evidence, the data experts point to polls taken ahead of the 2020 election, which showed the then-president trailing Biden significantly before narrowing the gap (but still losing all three states).
The difference between the 2020 polls and the eventual results is greater than the lead Harris has opened up there, they argue.
So, why would The New York Times do this after showing Trump in the lead in previous months?
Clearly, according to Fabrizio and Saler, they have a sinister motive.
“Once again, we see a series of public surveys released with the clear intent and purpose of depressing support for President Trump,” the duo write in their memo.
Obviously, it makes little sense to depress support for a candidate at a time when no votes are being cast. However, if it’s an explanation that is good enough to pacify the boss, that’s good enough for them.
