ON POLITICS

For the Record: Polls are all wrong, says pollster

Brett McGinness
USA TODAY
Kellyanne Conway, new campaign manager for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, speaks to reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York on Aug. 17, 2016.

The latest YouGov/Economist poll has Hillary Clinton up by 3 nationwide. An Arizona poll shows Donald Trump up by 5 in the traditionally red state, while Clinton and Trump are too close to call in North Carolina, a state that went for Barack Obama in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. All three polls are about as useful as mashing your palm down on the keyboard repeatedly, says Trump's campaign manager. Hey, some people just want to be surprised on Election Day; we're not going to argue with that.

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Conway: Polls are wrong, Trump actually winning, Clemson actually No. 1

Donald Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway says "undercover Trump voters" will ensure Trump's victory this November. Conway told the UK's Channel 4 News that Trump's polling deficit is due to “the cherry-picked polling numbers that are put out there by media outlets that are also bent on his destruction,” (Note to all the bleeding-heart hippies at ultra-left Fox News and Breitbart News: Stop being so bent on Trump's destruction.)

“Donald Trump performs consistently better in online polling where a human being is not talking to another human being about what he or she may do in the election,” she said.  “It’s because it’s become socially desirable, if you’re a college-educated person in the United States of America, to say that you’re against Donald Trump.” Conway says the Bradley effect is behind Trump's polling deficit; the theory is that voters are less likely to tell human pollsters that they're voting for Trump, but are more willing to back Trump in anonymous online polls or telephone robopolls. Conway, who owns a polling firm, says the campaign has conducted an internal project to determine how far off the polls are from reality. “I can’t discuss it,” she said. “It’s a project we’re doing internally. I call it the undercover Trump voter, but it’s real.”

Clinton camp: Nothing to see here

Hillary Clinton speaks at a press conference announcing a new initiative between the Clinton Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, titled Data 2x on December 15, 2014 in New York City.

Team Clinton is fighting back against an Associated Press analysis that showed more than half of the people with whom Hillary Clinton had met had donated to the Clinton Foundation. “They've took a small sliver of her tenure as secretary of State, less than half the time, less than a fraction of the meetings she was in," said chief strategist Joel Benenson on CNN's New Day Wednesday, saying the media has been "cherry picking" data on the story. So Trump and Clinton are in agreement: Neither candidate is doing anything wrong; journalists are just out cherry-picking things. (And for what it's worth, the AP has said the analysis was done of the calendars released so far -- so the "cherry-picked" data is actually just 100% of the data available right now.)

Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon specifically took issue with criticism of Clinton's meeting with philanthropist Melinda Gates in a statement Tuesday (a cherry-picked example, if you will). "Melinda Gates is a world-renowned philanthropist whose foundation works to address global health crises and eradicate disease in the developing world. Meeting with someone like Melinda Gates is squarely in the purview of America's top diplomat, whose job involves confronting these same global challenges."

Mississippi earning

Supporters cheer as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Mississippi Coliseum on Wednesday.

Rarely would you find Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, Brexit leader Nigel Farage and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant in the same place, aside from that one random guest table at Ann Coulter's wedding reception. But Jackson, Mississippi played host to the fivesome at a Wednesday night rally for Trump, focused on winning over African Americans and reinforcing his stance on illegal immigration. “It’s time to give Democrats some competition for the African American and Hispanic vote,” Trump said. “What do you have to lose by trying something new?"

Apart from the continued push to attract African American voters, Trump also worked to dispel any notion that he's changing his tune on illegal immigration. “Hillary Clinton does not believe in America first,” Trump said. "... Why aren't young Americans considered dreamers, too? ... We will protect your job from illegal immigration and a broken visa system."

The catalyst for the visit was likely for campaign donations -- $1.2 million reportedly was raised -- rather than shoring up support; Trump leads Hillary Clinton in the Magnolia State by 15 points, according to a recent (probably Kellyanne Conway-approved) poll by Y'all Politics.

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