Senator JD Vance (Republican, Ohio) seemed unwilling to give weight to Donald Trump’s wilting poll numbers while appearing on Fox News this Sunday.
The Republican vice presidential nominee dismissed the numbers during a conversation with Shannon Bream, telling the host of Fox News Sunday that polls were being used as a tool to discourage Republicans from voting in November.
“Consistently, what you’ve seen in 2016 and 2020 is that the media uses fake polls to drive down Republican turnout and to create dissension and conflict with Republican voters,” he said.
“I’m telling you, every single person who’s watching this, the Trump campaign is in a very, very good spot,” Vance added. “We’re going to win this race; we just have to run through the finish line.”
When confronted with new numbers from a New York Times/Siena poll, the senator said the surveys “tend to radically overstate Democrats.”
Arguing that the surge in support for Vice President Kamala Harris was a “sugar high,” Vance told Bream polling from inside the Trump campaign showed the enthusiasm was “levelling off.”
“If you talk to insiders in the Kamala Harris campaign, they are very worried about where they are because the American people just don’t buy the idea that Kamala Harris, who has been vice president for 3 1/2 years, is somehow going to tackle the inflation crisis in a way tomorrow that she hasn’t in the past 1,300 days,” he said.
Bream then presented the Republican running mate with “new numbers” from a Washington Post/ABC News poll, which show Harris with a 4 to 5-point lead nationally.
Pressing Vance, she said, “If you think the momentum is not swinging, or your internal polls are suggesting differently, every other poll that’s been released has shown great momentum in her direction.”
In response, the senator dug in his heels, saying that Harris’ numbers were “stagnating” as he knocked the Post and ABC News’ polling as “wildly inaccurate” ahead of the 2020 race, where Trump was soundly defeated by President Joe Biden.
“We can’t worry about polls,” Vance said. “We have to run through the finish line and encourage everybody to get out there and vote.”
“But our message is going to be very simple. If you want to get back to the peace and prosperity, the rising take-home pay, Donald Trump delivered it once, and he can do it again,” he added.
Watch Vance’s full interview here. His polling remarks come around the 4:10 mark: