More Polling That Is Worse Than 'Damn Lies'

At our sister site of Hot Air, David Strom asks the question, “Are Some Pollsters Juking Trump's Poll Numbers, Or Is Something Else Going On?” His column was prompted by articles like this, which are clearly meant to drive the conventional wisdom that Donald Trump and the Republicans are collapsing in popularity, so as to encourage Democrats and discourage Republicans going into the next (the 2025 and the 2026) elections.

I have an answer for Mr. Strom. Yes, the long-term evidence indicates that some pollsters are juking Donald Trump’s poll numbers.

I have said this before. Something similar happened prior to the 2024 presidential election. As I noticed and wrote about in several columns, culminating in this one, post-election, we know that during the 2024 cycle, some left-wing pollsters were playing with the numbers to harm Trump because David Plouffe, a senior advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign and the former campaign manager for President Barack Obama, admitted as much post-election:

We didn’t get the breaks we needed on Election Day. I think it surprised people, because there was these public polls that came out in late September, early October, showing us with leads that we never saw.

Those polls Plouffe was referring to include most of the television network polls, many of the university surveys, and others. All were conducted by left-wing groups or by establishment types that are easily swayed by Democrat propaganda. They all had Harris up by three or more points for much of the race, although some of them trended back down the month before the election so they could deceitfully claim to be more accurate when the pollsters were graded.

As is well known, private campaign pollsters’ numbers are always the most accurate, because they absolutely must be – if they aren’t, that pollster will quickly find himself out of a job the next cycle.

If these left-wing pollsters were willing to do this before, there is no reason to believe that they wouldn’t be willing to do this again. Especially since now they don’t have to worry about Trump being on the ballot again, and therefore their polling will never be tested in an actual national election. The 2026 mid-term elections are not going to be a national race, but instead, there are going to be many state or local races in individual districts. Thus, there is no straight and obvious line from these high polling disapprovals for Trump that leads to potential GOP losses in the House and Senate.

‘X Isn’t Real Life’: CNN Data Analyst Floored Over Latest Trump Approval Numbers

As Strom mentions, the only pollsters of note to flip the script from pre-2024 election to post-2024 election are Atlas Intel and Gallup. Atlas got the 2024 election largely correct but now shows Trump down 55 percent to 44 percent in approval. Meanwhile, the other good pollsters from 2024, including Rasmussen, RMG, Emerson, Quantas, and Big Data poll, all have Trump only narrowly down by one or two points, usually with disapproval hovering around 50 percent. Gallup, which stopped doing head-to-head presidential projections after 2012, but still does other polling that showed, immediately prior to the 2024 election, that the GOP had an unprecedented edge for the 2024 elections, also has Trump with high disapproval ratings, and falling precipitously with independents.

Finally, Strom mentions the Pew Research Center national survey that just came out. This in-depth annual survey shows that in 2025, “Americans are about evenly split between the two parties: 46% identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, and 45% identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party.” This survey provides supportive evidence for the polling of Rasmussen, RMG, Emerson, Quantas, Big Data poll, etc.

Meanwhile, CNN – one of the bad pollsters – has a poll that shows that the constant propaganda drumbeat coming from the left-wing pollsters may be working. According to this poll, 72 percent of Democrats and Democratic-aligned registered voters say they are extremely motivated to vote in next year’s congressional election, which stands 22 points above the share of Republican and Republican-leaning voters who feel the same way. According to this CNN poll, the GOP should be very worried.

Is this CNN poll another biased left-wing poll? Chances are, it is.

Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its globalist agenda.

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