Enraged By Fox News Poll, Trump Urges Viewers To Change Channels

Donald Trump ended the July Fourth holiday weekend by rage-tweeting at Fox News after the outlet reported that public polling shows he would lose to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden if the election were held today.

"@FoxNews gladly puts up the phony suppression polls as soon as they come out. We are leading in the REAL polls because people are sick & tired of watching the Democrat run cities, in all cases, falling apart. Also, now 96% Approval Rating in the Republican Party. Another 2016!" Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon.

He added, "@FoxNews weekend afternoons is the worst! Getting into @CNN and MSDNC territory. Watch @OANN & @newsmax instead. Much better!"

Trump's tweet came just minutes after a guest on Fox News dismissed the Trump campaign's assertion that polls showing Trump losing are wrong, according to Media Matters for America's Matt Gertz, who tracks the relationship between Trump's tweets and what Fox News airs.

Public polling in recent weeks looks extremely grim for Trump, as the public increasingly turns away from his candidacy following his failure to contain the coronavirus as well as his response to protests calling for an end to police violence and systemic racism.

Fox News has not released a national public poll since late last month. That one showed Biden leading Trump by 12 points, with Trump garnering a dismal 38 percent of the vote.

After that poll was published, Trump attacked Fox News, tweeting that their poll was "done by the same group of haters that got it even more wrong in 2016."

Ultimately, Biden now leads Trump by 9.6 percent, according to a polling average from FiveThirtyEight.

Even worse for Trump is that the polling average shows Biden winning more than 51 percent of the vote, a clear majority.

According to CNN polling expert Harry Enten, "No one in an incumbent presidential election has been polling above 50 percent at this point like Biden and gone on to lose."

Trump and his campaign have said the polls are wrong and even went as far as to demand CNN retract a poll that showed Biden with a 14-point lead.

However, since that CNN poll was published, multiple other polls — including from pro-Trump outlets — have shown Biden with a double-digit lead, without any additional demands from the Trump campaign to take the polling down.

To combat the growing narrative that Trump is in a historically bad place with four months to go until Election Day, the campaign has been claiming, without any evidence, there are "silent" Trump supporters who will come out en masse and help Trump defeat Biden in November.

The campaign pointed to signs of "enthusiasm" for Trump but released no internal polls showing that Trump is beating Biden.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.