Donald Trump responded to Vice President Kamala Harris's reported lead in three vital swing states with a rant insisting polls were inaccurate and unfair.
Trump took to Truth Social Monday afternoon to share an analysis from an anonymous pollster he claimed had called into question a New York Times-Siena Poll survey that found Harris taking the lead in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
"A Major, and highly respected, Pollster: 'Don’t let the embargo of other polling fool anyone - Democrats are in real trouble,'" Trump wrote. "Fake Polls are changing their methods and standards from 3 weeks ago. Highly inaccurate (dishonest!)."
Trump's campaign has also issued a memo — which cited pollster Tony Fabrizio and data consultant Tim Saler — arguing the results dramatically understated the former president's support among registered voters.
The memo questioned the model for identifying likely voters and claimed public surveys were being released to depress support for the Republican nominee.
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Washington Post analyst Philip Bump rejected Fabrizio's and Saler's argument as "particularly silly" in an analysis released Monday.
"The idea — one Trump himself offered repeatedly in 2020 — is that polls showing Trump trailing somehow make Trump supporters less likely to support Trump," Bump writes. "It’s not clear how this manifests; is the argument that those voters will consider casting a ballot in November until they remember the Times’s August poll?"
The Trump campaign calls into question any poll that doesn't favor their candidate, Bump argued, and, as Harris gains momentum, they've begun conditioning followers to reject an election loss in November.
"The point isn’t to increase Trump’s credibility," Bump wrote. "It’s to erode everyone else’s. That way, when they accurately report the results in November, Trump can remind his supporters to reject them if necessary."
