Photo: Alamy
President Donald Trump’s campaign website blasted a new CBS/YouGov national poll that showed Vice President Kamala Harris
Senior Trump campaign adviser Brian Hughes released a statement on Sunday criticizing the flawed methods in the poll.
“The Fake News Media continue to help dangerously liberal Kamala hide her record of economic failure and soft on crime policies. Now, as this analysis shows they’ll even put a finger on the scale of polling to inflate results for her,” Hughes said.
“This analysis is why the American people are seeing through it and will not allow this national gaslighting campaign to win. Despite this manipulated result, from CBS/YouGov it’s worth noting that in July and August of 2020, their data showed Biden leading by 10 nationally, reflecting a net positive movement of almost +10 to President Trump this election cycle,” he added.
The YouGov poll noted in the statement showed Harris with 46 percent support among likely voters. The total placed her in the lead within a 3 percent margin of error among 1,434 voters.
However, an analysis by Tim Saler, a grassroots targeting chief data consultant for the Trump campaign, showed that the changes in poll methodology accounted for the lead by Harris instead of changes in voter attitudes.
“Had CBS / YouGov done the same on ideology, President Trump would be maintaining a 51-49 lead in the August 4 survey,” he concluded in his analysis.
The news comes as a growing number of polls have started to show Harris as leading or tied with Trump. A closer look reveals Harris is leading Trump in only one battleground state, Nevada.
A list of recent surveys compiled by Newsweek shows Harris and Trump close in three battleground states, including Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The CBS/YouGov poll may show bias in its methods but the overall picture in several key states remains close.
The concern has already been addressed by Trump’s campaign. Trump held a rally in the battleground state of Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday.
He has also held multiple campaign stops in Michigan and Pennsylvania, where he survived a recent assassination attempt in Butler on July 13.