In an article headlined “Exclusive: Kaplan Poll Shows Trump Trailing Harris by 4 Points Among Registered Voters,” MAGA propaganda site RedState.com plainly felt like they had to make good on the sunk cost of commissioning a survey and report the findings even if they really didn’t want to.
The giveaway is that they put the registered voter number, Harris 50 to Trump 46 percent, in the headline rather than the likely voter number, Harris 52 – Trump 45, percent to make it look closer even as, you know, the likely voter finding is universally seen as the more accurate heuristic. The Hill pulled the same bullshit last week when ABC and Washington Post’s poll put Harris ahead by 6.
The article then quotes pollster Doug Kaplan spinning the findings with “This is a very close race, and the Trump campaign is absorbing the full-on assault of Harris campaign – and yet, Harris, with everything going in her favor, is still not pulling away from Trump.” Jesus Christ, lol. Harris 52 to Trump 45 would be a fucking apocalyptic landslide if that were the final result. We have no idea who Doug Kaplan is and if he just signed off on a quote Red State wrote for him or if he’s actually unskewing his own poll. It doesn’t really matter, nor do we actually take this crackerjack’s finding seriously, it’s just hilarious that a right wing outlet has to publish it and piss off their readers.
“There is always the suspicion that Trump supporters are lying to pollsters because of the social stigma. This is why we ask about other issues to see where the questions go when they are not tagged to Trump,” Kaplan continued and holy fucking shit, lol. The top of the piece is labeled with the old “The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com,” even though the writer, Neil McCabe, calls himself RedState’s “National Political Reporter.” His most recent story before this one was headlined “Exclusive: Swiss Political Scientist Says Voters Lying to Pollsters Created Harris Poll Surge.” It was also labeled opinion.