A pollster said this week that President Joe Biden's slight lead over former President Trump in a new Fox News poll is a "blip."
On Thursday, pollster Lee Carter appeared on Fox News' Fox & Friends to discuss a new poll from Fox News that found Biden with a 2-percentage-point lead over Trump in a 2024 presidential matchup.
"My guess is right now, this is gonna be a blip," Carter said. "I don't think this is something that's long term. I think we saw these kinds of shifts in polls in 2016, but I think it's important to note that Donald Trump was never ever, ever...ahead in the polls in 2016 or 2020."
"And he consistently outperformed the polls by between three and eight points...even though he didn't win in 2020, he still overperformed what the polls said he was gonna do and I think we're still gonna see that same kind of phenomenon this year."
The comments by Carter came shortly after a Fox News poll released a survey of 1,095 registered voters that showed Biden leading by two points, 50 percent to 48 percent.
In a Fox News poll in May, Trump was leading Biden by one point, 49 percent to 48 percent. The former president had a five-point lead in March, 50 percent to 45 percent, meaning there has been a significant swing in Biden's favor in the past three months.
The last time Biden held a lead over Trump in a Fox News poll was October, when the president was ahead by 49 percent to 48 percent.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign via email for comment. Biden's campaign declined comment.
This month's Fox News poll is its first since Trump was found guilty by a Manhattan jury of falsifying business records in his historic hush money trial. Trump denied any wrongdoing and accused the investigation of being a politically motivated "witch hunt" that aimed to stop him from winning the 2024 election.
In a post to X, formerly Twitter, Simon Rosenberg, founder of the Democrat-supporting New Democrat Network think tank, shared the poll from Fox News and several other recent polls that showed Biden gaining support.
"Intensity of Murdoch empire in defending Trump, escalation of cheapfakes (cheating), hysterical reaction from Rs after verdict all suggest their polling told them convicted felon = bad," Rosenberg said in a post.
In a post to Truth Social, Trump didn't directly address the Fox News poll but criticized the news network, saying: "Nobody can ever trust Fox News, and I am one of them, with the weak and ineffective RINO, Paul Ryan, on its Board of Directors. He's a total lightweight, a failed and pathetic Speaker of the House, and a very disloyal person. Romney was bad, but Paul Ryan made him look worse.
"As a team, they never had a chance. Rupert and Lachlan, get that dog off your Board - You don't need him. ALL YOU NEED IS TRUMP. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
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Matthew Impelli is a Newsweek staff writer based in New York. His focus is reporting social issues and crime. In ... Read more
