MSNBC host Chris Jansing asked a top Biden-Harris campaign official point-blank for polling data to prove his claim that President Joe Biden could defeat former President Donald Trump.
Since a poor performance in a June 27 CNN debate with Trump, Biden has faced multiple calls to step aside as the Democratic nominee, while the Washington Post reported that former President Barack Obama said Biden’s path to collecting the necessary 270 electoral votes has “greatly diminished.” Jansing was discussing the state of the campaign with principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks Thursday afternoon, when Fulks dismissed rumors about Biden stepping aside.
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“I want to ask you very clearly, do you have polling that shows Joe Biden ahead or specifically shows you a path to victory that you’re willing to release publicly given the number of calls for him to step aside?” Jansing asked Fulks.
“We are not going to release any of our public polling data. We have polls that show this race in a margin of error victory in several of the battleground states and there is a clear pathway to victory,” Fulks claimed. “In fact, there are multiple pathways to victory in our polling, and our campaign is going to continue on our strategic mission of making sure we’re implementing our research findings into the field using campaign resources to make sure we’re carrying out the ways in which we feel like we are going to get to that path to victory.”
Trump leads Biden by 2.5% in a national head-to-head matchup, according to the RealClearPolling average of polls, with the lead expanding to 3.7% when Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy, Jr and Cornel West are included in surveys. In 2020, Biden led Trump by 8.8% in the RealClearPolitics average of polls on July 18, while Hillary Clinton led Trump by 3.2% in the RealClearPolitics average on July 18, 2016.