Jim McLaughlin to Newsmax TV: Issues, Not Polls Will Decide 2020

Issues, not polls, will be the deciding factor in November's general election, Trump pollster Jim McLaughlin told Newsmax TV Monday, while insisting the campaign feels "really good about where we are right now" after last week's Republican National Convention. 

"Forget the polls and I say this as the pollster," McLaughlin said on Newsmax TV's "Spicer & Co." "You know how well? Joe Biden actually came out of the basement this afternoon. That's how we know we did well. He was basically forced to come out. He gave a very feeble and defensive speech."

McLaughlin added that after the conventions, in several battleground states, with "other people's polls. He pointed out that President Donald Trump is up in Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, and in a dead heat in Pennsylvania, so "we feel really, really good about where we are right now."

But when McLaughlin was asked why voters should have confidence in polls, after what happened in the 2016 race with then-Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton, he responded that "we talk too much about polls."

"Remember this time four years ago," he said. "The Democrats were telling us and their friends in the media that there was no way that Donald Trump was going to be able to win. And you know what one of the things that we're most focused on in the campaign it's not the polls. It's the issues."

The race will also not be decided based on national polls, McLaughlin said. 

"You know in places like New York and California, you know Joe Biden's gonna win in those states," he said. "The voters are more focused on issues. That's where the president has the real advantage right now, and Joe Biden's really get hurt by that radical leftist turn that they took. That's why they saw their numbers actually go down during the Democratic convention." 

Meanwhile, people care more about rebuilding the economy and immigration, and with those matters, Trump has "significant advantages over Biden," said McLaughlin. 

Law and order is another issue that is growing quickly, and that is one of the reasons Trump got elected, said McLaughlin, as there was 'fear of law and order" when it came to terrorism and immigration. 

"What's happened is because Joe Biden and the national Democrats chose to remain silent on these riots, chaos, and looting that's been going on in these Democratic cities across the country," said McLaughlin. "They literally insulted the American voters' intelligence."

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