Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus on Friday tried to downplay the fact that Donald Trump still trails Hillary Clinton by disputing the results of a recent Fox News poll during an interview on that same network.
“The latest Fox poll still shows Donald Trump down,” host Melissa Francis told Priebus, noting that the RNC chair had said Trump would “be tied or ahead” by Labor Day. “Are you disappointed with where the campaign is right now?”
“No, wait a second, the Fox News poll showed that he was down by three,” Priebus interjected, an apparent reference to the survey’s results when factoring in third-party candidates, Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party’s Jill Stein (the Fox poll actually found that Trump was down by two points, 41-39, in a four-way race).
“Six,” Francis replied firmly, as a graphic showing Clinton leading Trump 48 percent to 42 percent flashed on the screen. “Six in a two-way.”
“Okay, well, you wanna choose the worst that’s available,” Priebus replied.
“Look, he’s either down by a couple or even,” he insisted. “That’s exactly where we thought this thing was going, and I don’t think that anybody can deny that the polls are narrowing and I think that the momentum is on his side.”
The RNC chair said he felt good about where the campaign stands, earning him a cheery “good for you” from Francis.
In recent weeks, polls have shown the wide lead Clinton that held after the July national party conventions narrowing. TPM’s PollTracker Average now has Clinton with 44.6 percent of the vote compared to 41.5 percent for Trump.
The Trump campaign has tried to dodge bad polling news before. Interviewed last month on CNN, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen asked what evidence host Brianna Keilar had to prove that his candidate was down.
“Polls…most of them…all of them?” Keilar responded.
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