Trump team cries foul over Sunday poll, but surveys out Monday show same or worse
After a week of upward polling momentum for Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump’s campaign pushed back on the data found in one survey only to have others show the same result.
A poll of more than 3,000 voters by CBS and YouGov released Sunday showed Harris up by the barest of margins, but doing dramatically better than her boss had been before he decided to back away from presidential consideration.
“She has a 1-point edge nationally — something President Biden never had (he was down by 5 points when he left the race) — and Harris and former President Donald Trump are tied across the collective battleground states,” CBS wrote.
That small lead, according to Trump’s campaign, was the result of some funny math by pollsters and not reflective of reality.
“The latest CBS / YouGov poll of registered voters nationwide showing margin-of-error shifts in the national head-to-head ballot between President Trump and Kamala Harris is entirely the result of a methodological decision allowing ideology to change significantly, while maintaining weights on age, partisanship, and race to make the survey appear not to have been manipulated,” Trump’s campaign said Monday.
According to Trump’s campaign, the polls sampling make up is also problematic. Of 3,092 registered voters contacted, only 35.5% identified themselves as conservatives, compared to 30.3% moderate voters and 30.2% liberal leaners. That’s fewer conservatives and moderates than seen in past polls, they say, and unfairly skewed to the left.
“Without this manipulation, President Trump would be maintaining a 51-49 lead in their August 4 survey,” the Trump’s team said.
Brian Hughes, a Trump campaign senior advisor, said the polls demonstrate that the “fake news media” is continuing its crusade to “help dangerously liberal Kamala hide her record of economic failure and soft on crime policies.”
“As this analysis shows they’ll even put a finger on the scale of polling to inflate results for her. This analysis is why the American people are seeing through it and will not allow this national gaslighting campaign to win,” Hughes said.
But despite the skepticism cast by team Trump, a slew of polls released Monday show similar results.
A survey of 1,326 registered voters conducted by I&I/TIPP shows Harris up by one point in a head-to-head matchup and by two points in a race including third party alternatives, both within the 2.9-point margin of error.
A SurveyUSA poll of 1,500 likely voters found the Vice President leading the 45th President by three points — outside the 2.4% margin of error — with 4% of those surveyed reporting they are still undecided.
A Morning Consult poll of 11,265 registered voters released on Monday has Harris up by 4%, well outside that weekly survey’s 1% margin of error.
“Harris leads Trump, 48% to 44%, a record-high margin in her favor in our tracking and the largest advantage for a Democratic presidential candidate over Trump in nearly a year,” pollsters wrote.