President Trump took matters into his own hands after recent negative polling by hiring a third-party consultant to look into potential bias.
“I have retained highly respected pollster, McLaughlin & Associates, to analyze today’s CNN Poll (and others), which I felt were FAKE based on the incredible enthusiasm we are receiving. Read analysis for yourself. This is the same thing they and others did when we defeated Crooked Hillary Clinton in 2016. They are called SUPPRESSION POLLS, and are put out to dampen enthusiasm. Despite 3 ½ years of phony Witch Hunts, we are winning, and will close it out on November 3rd,” he tweeted on Monday.
…Crooked Hillary Clinton in 2016. They are called SUPPRESSION POLLS, and are put out to dampen enthusiasm. Despite 3 ½ years of phony Witch Hunts, we are winning, and will close it out on November 3rd! pic.twitter.com/4IhuLUZjsv
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 8, 2020
The latest CNN poll released Monday found Trump’s job approval rating dropped 7 percentage points within a month and that he now trails behind presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden 55%-41%, which provides Biden nearly 3 times more of a lead than the network’s May poll. Trump’s overall approval rating was at 38%.
The poll was conducted between June 2-5, polling 1,259 respondents with an oversample of 250 black, non-Hispanic respondents. Landline respondents totaled to 448, and 811 were cellphone respondents. The margin of sampling error for total respondents is plus or minus 3.4 at the 95% confidence level.
In a letter shared by the president, his pollster, veteran GOP pollster John McLaughlin, argued the poll sampled adults and not registered voters. Additionally, the poll was conducted prior to the May jobs report, which showed a surprising boost of an additional 2.5 million jobs added to the economy despite the coronavirus pandemic. McLaughlin also said the poll skewed Democratic as only 25% of respondents described themselves as Republican compared to 32% who were Democratic and 44% independent or a member of another party.
“It appears that the CNN poll is biased in both sample and questionnaire design to manufacture an anti-Trump outcome,” McLaughlin wrote, adding that other “skewed” polling from NBC and ABC was “intentional.”
McLaughlin has conducted polls for a number of high-ranking Republicans but has also received criticism for missing outcomes by a wide margin. Most notably, McLaughlin predicted former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor held a strong lead over his opponent in Virginia’s 2014 primary just weeks before his election loss.
The pollster also pointed to holes in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that came out Sunday, saying it was among registered voters and not likely voters. Republicans also made up 26% of respondents.
The poll found Trump behind Biden but by a smaller margin than the CNN poll, with Biden leading 7 points at 49-42. It also found Democrats held an advantage at Trump’s job approval rating, which was at 45%. The NBC/WSJ poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters, more than half of whom were contacted by cellphone. It was conducted between May 28 and June 2, and the overall margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
