CNN's Anderson Cooper Challenges RNC's Sean Spicer On Trump's Repeated Use Of Phony Polls

Cooper: “Phony Polls Are The Online Polls That Donald Trump Always Seems To Be Referencing”

From the October 24 edition of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360:

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ANDERSON COOPER (HOST): So Sean, you've seen the results of the new CNN poll. Trump trails by five points. He said today at a rally that he's actually winning, do you believe he's winning?

SEAN SPICER: Yeah, I think when you look at the battleground states, whether it's Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Nevada, I think where it matters, yeah, we're winning. And I think we have a path to 270 that's going to make him -- put him in the White House, come November 8th. Again -- and I think the other thing, Anderson, is you look at states where we can start to see some evidence of that, right? So, Florida we're up over the Democrats in the early votes, not just the absentee ballots requested, but then returned. Same thing in Iowa, and in places -- excuse me, like Iowa and North Carolina -- in Iowa, excuse me, in places like Iowa and Ohio where traditionally we don't do as well as early votes, you see actually a consolidation of where we've been in the past, to -- it's a much closer race for us. We do so well there on election day.

COOPER: But, I mean, you know, we just had John King explain the electoral map. Even if Trump wins all the states that CNN currently has as tossups, he still comes up short of 270. So I mean, you're looking just -- you say you're looking at early polling --

SPICER: No, if you take -- If you take -- right, but -- no, if you take Florida, Ohio, Nevada, Iowa, North Carolina, and then add in New Hampshire and Maine, too, which is both areas that I think we're doing very well in, that gets us over the 270 mark.

[...]

COOPER: This morning Trump tweeted, quote,“Major story that the Dems are making up phony polls in order to suppress the the Trump. We're going it to win,” end quote. Do you -- can you point to which polls and which Democrats he's referring to? Because he's not provided any evidence.

SPICER: There's an outlier today, ABC showing it a 12-point race, that's by far an outlier. The demographics that make up -- don't make any sense.

COOPER: Right, but that's not a phony -- That's not necessarily a phony --

SPICER: Well, sure it is. I mean, if you --

COOPER: Phony polls are the online polls that Donald Trump always seems to be referencing. Even the Rasmussen poll, you know, isn't something we would use.

SPICER: Okay, well again -- but you get to make that decision. I think when you look at the Rasmussen poll and IBD poll, one of -- the IBD poll was the most accurate poll going back a couple cycles. So, I get you may not like it, but it's actually been one of the most accurate polls going forward. Secondly, it's -- if a poll --

COOPER: The reason -- just for clarification, the reason we don't use it because they don't reveal all their methodology --

SPICER: I understand that, but that doesn't --

COOPER: -- and the Rasmussen poll uses a combination of online polling and television -- telephone polling.

SPICER: Right. I understand that, but I'm not saying that you have to accept it, but it doesn't make it phony.

Previously:

Anderson Cooper Explains To Trump Campaign Manager That Clinton’s Higher Poll Numbers Mean She’s Winning

Watch MSNBC's Chuck Todd Explain To A Trump Adviser That Online Snap Polls Are Not Real

Online Polls Are “Garbage,” But Fox News Still Cites Them