This is a complete debacle even by Donald Trump standards
“President” Donald Trump likes to pretend that the current polls are not accurate. He constantly rails against them, especially CNN’s poll that shows him trailing Biden by 14 points. His campaign went so far as to demand that CNN retract its poll, but CNN stands behind its work. Since Trump cannot get what he wants from legitimate media, he turns to his new favorite media One America News (“OAN”). OAN is a small network, trying to make its name off supporting Trump. The way things are looking for Trump these days, OAN is on a sinking ship. Even Faux News has released polls showing Biden clearly ahead of Trump, which has rankled Trump to no end. He had better get used to it. The one network that remains in his pocket is not exactly reliable.
While OAN promised to release a poll favorable to Trump, it showed Trump and Joe Biden tied in Florida. This “favorable” poll was compiled by Gravis Marketing, an outfit that FiveThirtyEight ranked a “C” among all pollsters. Before OAN realized that their poll was crap, they produced a video, featuring the network’s favorite conspiracy theorist, Kristian Rouz. Shortly after OAN published the video to its website, the video disappeared, and the poll results were deleted. Washington Post reviewed the reasons behind the removal.
WaPo contends that it is virtually impossible to have a 50-50 tie in a poll. Gravis’ poll indicated that Trump leads Biden 53% to 47% among undecided voters. To reach a 50-50 tie, Biden must be leading among decided voters by the same margin, 53% to 47%. Rouz left that detail out. The poll and video further misled by stating that Trump “has an edge” over Biden on handling the economy but leaves out the fact that Trump is far under 50% on his handling of the economy. According to WaPo, Rouz used leading questions or otherwise used “ludicrously loaded language.’ In other words, OAN skewed the poll to get the results they wanted. Considering that this is the only poll that shows Trump ahead or tied, it is no surprise that it is manufactured.
At the same time, CNN released its analysis of where the electoral college stands. Biden has a slim lead over Trump, but the most telling part of CNN’s analysis is that Biden has “many more plausible paths” to the 270 required than Trump. One way that CNN tracks these numbers is by first assuming that Biden carries the same 20 states that Clinton carried, giving him a total of 232. If, as the polls indicate right now, Biden takes back the Midwest, it is all over for Trump. Even if Bidens wins only Michigan and Pennsylvania and not Wisconsin, he would have a total of 268, two points away from electoral victory.
There is still plenty of time in this race for these predictions to turn; however, with each passing day, Trump’s path narrows. If Trump continues to fail at his job — such as his apparent decision to simply ignore the coronavirus — these numbers could well end up as predicted.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years