President Trump’s image of political invincibility, critical to his influence with congressional Republicans and grassroots conservatives, is under assault amid a sweltering summer of gloomy public opinion polls.
Trump has trailed presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden for months — nationally and in an expanding array of battleground states. A sustained struggle like that would test any presidential contender and raise questions about his or her campaign. But for Trump, the spate of discouraging data presents deeper challenges. It makes the president look vulnerable, undermining his brand as a strong leader, which appeals to the GOP base and keeps congressional Republicans in line.
“The president measures himself by his numbers — stock market, TV ratings — and he is behind,” said veteran Republican strategist Ed Rollins, who runs Great America PAC, a pro-Trump super PAC. “There is a psychological effect. It does affect supporters. People want to be with a winner.”
A GOP operative who works with Republicans in Congress said Trump’s slippage is beginning to erode his standing on Capitol Hill. With as many as seven GOP seats in play, it will only get worse if fear among Senate Republicans grows that the president might be a drag on keeping their 53-seat majority. “He’s got to show some strength or these senators will keep deserting him, making him a lame duck even before the election,” the operative said.
Throughout June and July, surveys piled up showing the president’s support plummeting amid the coronavirus, a recession, and civil unrest. Privately, close aides and other political supporters have urged Trump to make adjustments. Publicly, at least, Trump is dismissive and casts doubt on the information. “We are going to win the 2020 Election, BIG #MAGA,” the president tweeted on Thursday.
The president’s response is hardly unique. Discrediting problematic polling is a time-honored tradition for political campaigns. Weak candidates have a hard time raising money and attracting volunteers for field operations. Most importantly, voters are less motivated to show up and support them on Election Day if they do not think it matters.
Still, the Trump campaign’s effort to undermine the polls is unusually robust. The campaign has issued multiple memoranda and statements knocking the data in an offensive that recently culminated an hourlong, virtual briefing for reporters. During the Zoom presentation, Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien dissected surveys from nearly every battleground state, questioning their veracity and reliability and making comparisons to 2016, when some polls underestimated the president’s strength.
“We know here at our headquarters what our internal numbers say, and it’s why we have the, and exude the, quiet confidence in our plan,” Stepien said. “National polls are viewed around here as useless.”
Trump defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton four years ago after lagging behind her for much of the campaign, nationally and in polls of key battleground states.
Biden’s lead over the president is more substantial, and has proven more durable, than Clinton’s. But the Republican base is rejecting the data because they believe the polling in 2016 grossly misfired. That has led many Republican insiders to conclude that the typical concerns about the impact of bad polling do not apply to Trump.
Their confidence in this dynamic is compounded by their view that grassroots Republicans distrust the media generally and are inclined to side with Trump when he claims surveys with the former vice president beating him are wrong or faked.
“Frankly, if I were him, I might consider calling on his supporters to stop answering any and all polling calls,” said Scott Jennings, a GOP operative in Kentucky. “He can spend the rest of the election fighting off polling stories, or he could just destroy the polling news cycles for the next two months by keeping his people from participating.”
