Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin Says Polls Showing Joe Biden Ahead Are ‘Inaccurate’
In an interview with Politico published on Friday, Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan said that polls showing former Vice President Joe Biden ahead of President Donald Trump are “inaccurate.”
“I don’t believe it,” Slotkin said when asked about recent polls showing the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee in the lead.
“Listen, if anyone tells me they can accurately predict what major events are coming in the remainder of 2020, I’ll give them a thousand dollars,” she continued.
“I’ve been literally begging people to ignore those polls. They are a snapshot in time. And if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that we have no idea what’s coming next.”
According to the majority of recent polling, Biden has opened up a double-digit national lead over Trump. Furthermore, the president appears to be trailing the democrat in a number of battleground states. A CNBC/Change Research survey from earlier this month put Biden ahead in Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Florida.
As Politico noted, both public and private polling suggests that the Republican Party is losing ground nationwide. However, according to Slotkin, these polls need to be dismissed as well.
The Michigan Democrat explained that she interviewed a “bunch of different” pollsters in 2018 when she first decided to run for the House of Representatives. She said that the pollsters were asked to explain to her what they got wrong in 2016 when they predicted a landslide victory for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Only one pollster — a person affiliated with the Washington-based Al Quinlan of GQR — addressed the issue, according to Slotkin. The individual apparently said that polling agencies “fundamentally undercounted the Trump vote.”
“I believe that same thing is happening right now,” Slotkin warned.
As the publication noted, Slotkin — a former CIA analyst who served in the Middle East — is thought to have a talent for “crunching data and challenging conclusions and adapting to findings.” In 2018, she won in a traditionally Republican district which Trump carried in 2016 by 7 points.
Some experts disagree with Slotkin’s assessment. In an interview on Friday, CNN’s polling analyst Harry Enten said that Trump will “lose bigly” if he doesn’t change his campaign strategy. Enten argued that Trump is centering his reelection campaign on the economy, despite the fact that most voters are concerned about racial issues and the coronavirus pandemic.
The analyst pointed to a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll, which showed that Trump’s COVID-19 disapproval rating is at an all-time high. The survey found that 67 percent of Americans disapprove of the way the president has handled the coronavirus pandemic.
