A top campaign official for Donald Trump said Sunday that a week fraught with gaffes and bad press turned out not to be so bad after all.
The billionaire candidate made a number of headlines in the past week that generated an extensive amount of controversy for the campaign. Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was charged with battery against former Breitbart report Michelle Fields and Trump took a series of positions on aborition including a call to punish women who get abortions. He also admitted making a “mistake” for tweeting an unflattering photo of Ted Cruz’s wife.
“Are you guys in full out damage control mode?”, MSNBC reporter Chris Jansing asked Barry Bennett, senior campaign adviser for Trump, on Sunday morning.
Taking a cue from his boss, Bennett went straight to touting polls.
“If you look at the tracking poll, which Reuters does every day — in the last five days — the media says its our worst week ever,” Bennett said.
“In the last five days we’ve picked up six points, Ted Cruz has dropped two points, Kasich has dropped one point,” he added.
The Reuters polling data Bennett was referring to does show increased support for Trump in the last five days. Topped by the headline “Trump expands lead in GOP race,” the polling shows Trump rising from 39.3 percent support to 44.6 percent. Meanwhile Cruz and Kasich dropped about 1 and 2 percent respectively.
“So it turns our worst week ever was a pretty good week,” Bennett concluded.
