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White House counselor Kellyanne Conway dismissed national polls as a “colossal waste of time and money” soon after Fox News released results showing Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump by 12 points.
Conway cited her experience as a political pollster to downplay the importance of nationwide presidential polls during a wide-ranging interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier Thursday.
(Source: Fox News)
“Also I know you’re talking a lot about the polls,” Conway said near the end of the “Special Report with Bret Baier” segment.
“I was a pollster for many years and respectfully, we never did one single national poll when I was campaign manager of Trump/Pence 2016. Why? They are a colossal waste of time and money,” she said.
The senior Trump adviser made the comments shortly after Fox News released its latest presidential poll which showed Democratic nominee Joe Biden leading with 50 percent to Trump’s 38 percent nationally. Conway’s criticism echoed that of other critics of the poll which combined voters from swing and non-swing states.
“Statewide polls are really the gold standard,” Conway told Baier. “David Plouffe, another respected campaign manager for President Obama, backed me up on this yesterday, He said it’s like 50 different governors’ races.”
She then suggested, “let’s look at the statewide polls.”
“The polls in states are about where I would expect them to be, depending on the poll, with Trump and Biden both under 50 percent in most of those statewide polls and within a few points of each other,” she explained.
Critics noted that Conway did not refer to Biden’s lead over Trump in several battleground state polls, such as in Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, and New Hampshire. But Conway pointed to the 2016 campaign, in which many polls incorrectly showed Hillary Clinton winning the race, and noted that the president would soon be campaigning in the swing states.
“I saw that in 2016 the day Donald Trump asked me to become the campaign manager in August and we saw that they were both under 50, they were within a couple points of each other,” she said.
“And then you’re going to go state-by-state, we know that President Trump and Vice President Pence are going to spend more time out in swing states than Joe Biden ever can, and they will be connecting directly and…rolling out the vision for the next four years.”
Moments later, CNBC confirmed exactly this in new swing state polling: tight races, with both below 50% in AZ, FL, MI, NC, PA & WI.
Beware national polls.
Biased? sometimes.
Useless? always, when electoral college is how one wins. https://t.co/Ynn5ooxyIw— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) June 17, 2020
The latest Fox News Poll showed Biden’s growing lead over the president but also revealed that 63 percent of voters cited fears over Trump being reelected as their motivation for casting a vote for the Democrat.
Fox News says it’s new poll out tonight shows Joe Biden leading President Trump 50% to 38% pic.twitter.com/HSU04taF4p
— Art (@ahernandez2bak) June 19, 2020
Biden leads over Trump by 39-17 percent with Independent voters, 43 percent are undecided or will be supporting someone else. Despite his many gaffes and controversial remarks, such as the headline-making “you ain’t black” comments on Charlamagne Tha God’s radio show last month, 53 percent of those polled believe the former vice president respects racial minorities, compared to 35 percent who felt that way about Trump.
Amid ongoing protests and racial divides across the nation, the poll showed that 61 percent disapprove of how the president is handling race relations.
The Fox News Poll, conducted June 13-16 2020, included interviews with 1,343 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
But while the poll showed that Biden supporters are motivated by fear, it also indicated that 62 percent of Trump’s supporters are driven by enthusiasm.
“Negative emotions like fear, anxiety, and anger, can be powerful motivators for political participation,” Daron Shaw, who conducts the Fox News Poll with Democrat Chris Anderson, said. “The lack of enthusiasm for Biden, however, does create an opening for Trump to define him as out of touch and not up to the task.”
“Trump needs to expand beyond traditional Republican groups and cut Biden’s support among independents,” he said. “The best news in the poll for the Trump campaign is a significant percentage of independents saying they haven’t decided or are considering a third-party option.”
Despite the liberal celebration over the numbers in favor of Biden, many Twitter users backed Conway’s dismissal of the national poll, posting reminders about 2016.
Why does @foxandfriends @FoxNews broadcast fake irrelevant pols. Did y’all not learn anything from the 2016 election when every poll was wrong? Don’t be stupid.
— Deplorable t2 (@consrvative2T) June 19, 2020
I do not believe the just released Fox News poll that shows Biden with a 12 point lead over Trump.
But I hope the Democrats do.
This is 2016 all over again.
— RD (@real_defender) June 18, 2020
Early August 2016 Fox News Poll. Pretty comparable lead. Why is Twitter going crazy? Polls are meaningless.
On another note the #WalkAway hashtag is blowing up … #KeepAmericaGreat pic.twitter.com/0dReN1fGqn
— patriot and proud of it 🇺🇸 (@_real_news) June 18, 2020
imagine actually believing the fox news poll
is everyone just forgetting about 2016? polls dont mean shit anymore
— Num (@numbxtal) June 18, 2020
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