Donald Trump Campaign Official Dismisses Polls: President Is ‘Doing Exceptionally Well Across The Country’
In an interview with Fox News broadcast on Saturday, Erin Perrine, director of press communications for President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, discussed the 2020 presidential election.
Perrine signaled optimism and dismissed opinion polling, noting that the president’s team is reaching more voters than in 2016, when he competed against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“The campaign is doing exceptionally well across the country. We have made over 75 million voter contacts. And to compare that to 2016, we had made just over 30 million the entire cycle.”
Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, is ahead of Trump in most polls. However, in recent weeks, the polling gap between the two candidates appears to have shrunk.
Per the RealClearPolitics average of polling data, Trump is trailing Biden by 6.4 percentage points nationwide.
“We’re doing better now at this point in the election cycle than we were in ’16,” Perrine said.
“Even if you look at the Fox News poll numbers, we’re ahead of where we were,” she added.
Indeed, the network’s most recent poll showed Biden leading Trump by 8 points, suggesting that the commander-in-chief is closing the gap.
In 2016, at this point in the race, Clinton’s lead oscillated between 6 and 10 percentage points.
However, a recent analysis by FiveThirtyEight found that Biden is doing better than the former secretary of state, since he enjoys the support of around 50 percent of the electorate. Clinton’s support usually hovered in the low 40s. The analysis also found that the vast majority of voters have already made up their mind about the election, which was not the case four years ago.
In addition, there seem to be several undeniable hurdles for Trump. The coronavirus pandemic has led to an unprecedented public health crisis, causing major economic losses. Furthermore, his approval ratings are in the negative territory.
Still, according to Perrine, Trump is well-positioned to win in November.
“We have a candidate who has a record and a message that the American people can connect with. Joe Biden, no matter what he spends on ads or how he tries to spin it, he doesn’t have a record to sell,” she said.
Reports suggest that the Trump campaign recently went through a major “crisis.” Brad Parscale was demoted and replaced with longtime Republican operative Bill Stepien, the commander-in-chief canceled Republican National Convention events and his team paused television advertisements.
Those close to Trump have apparently urged him to change his approach to the coronavirus pandemic and called for more aggressive attacks on Biden.
