Trump says Fox News polls ‘among the worst’ after latest shows him trailing Biden

President Trump disputed a new Fox News poll showing him trailing presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden by 8 points, calling it “fake” and criticizing the network’s polls as “among the worst.”

Trump, during a contentious interview with Fox News’s Chris Wallace that aired on “Fox News Sunday,” insisted he is “not losing” the presidential race, despite a number of recent polls showing him trailing Biden both nationally and in key battleground states.

{mosads}“I’m not losing, because those are fake polls. They were fake in 2016 and now they’re even more fake. The polls were much worse in 2016,” Trump said in the interview taped on Friday, suggesting the surveys were skewed because pollsters did not interview enough Republican voters.

Trump also claimed that his campaign has internal polls showing him “leading in every swing state.”

“Whoever does your Fox polls, they’re among the worst. They got it all wrong in 2016. They’ve been wrong on every poll I’ve ever seen,” Trump continued. When Wallace tried to interject, Trump stopped him from doing so.

The president insisted that he has “always” led Biden on the economy and attacked his Democratic opponent, claiming Biden “can’t put two sentences together.”

Fox News polls are considered reputable. In 2016, the network’s final poll found then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton leading Trump by 4 percentage points, which was close to her margin of victory in the popular vote. 

The new poll, released Friday, showed Biden leading Trump nationally, 49 percent to 41 percent.

It also found that voters trust Biden to do a better job than Trump handling race relations by a 21-point margin, trust Biden to do a better job handling the coronavirus by a 17-point margin and trust Biden to do a better job handling the economy by a slim 1-point margin. In earlier polls, voters have said they trust Trump to do a better job handling the economy but trust Biden more on other issues.

Trump has repeatedly disputed recent polls showing him trailing Biden, calling them “fake.” But last week he shook up his campaign leadership, replacing his campaign manager, a sign that his campaign is trying to change course in the face of an uphill race as the election draws nearer.