Pollster Jim McLaughlin, pushing back at a report from MSNBC host Joy Reid that Republican pollsters are inflating polls in favor of GOP candidates, said Wednesday on Newsmax that left-leaning media organizations and universities are the ones who are skewing the polls by including fewer Republicans.
"This is the typical example of the left, accusing Republicans of what the left is doing," McLaughlin said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "You are still seeing a lot of these national polls right now done by the media and these colleges and universities where Republicans are only represented in their surveys by about a quarter of the vote."
Earlier this week, Reid said on her program, "The ReidOut," that polls suggesting GOP candidates are surging ahead were part of an "insidious and seemingly intentional campaign from Republican-backed polling firms to flood the zone and tip the balance of polling averages in favor of their candidates, to create a narrative that Republicans are surging and that a red wave is imminent and inevitable."
But McLaughlin noted, for example, that an Emerson College poll scored Rep. Lee Zeldin, the GOP nominee in the New York governor's race, down by 8 percentage points against Democrat incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul.
"The problem is with the survey again," said McLaughlin. "They oversampled Democrats at about 53% and undersampled Republicans at only about 23% or 24%."
However, there have been multiple polls that have said the race is tied or has given Zeldin a slight advantage, McLaughlin said. He also pointed out that Zeldin is right by keeping his campaign going down to the wire.
"(He) has been out there, saying our campaign is about saving the state," said McLaughlin, adding that there are just six days left before election day and "these are the six hardest days of a campaign."
Zeldin is also calling to turn out the vote, and he's correct as well with that, McLaughlin said.
"You don't want to take anything for granted right now in any of these races because a lot can happen with six days left, and a lot of Republicans do not trust early voting," McLaughlin said. "They do not trust the vote by mail, so the Republicans need to have a big turnout and a big day on Election Day. I know candidates like Lee and other Republicans across the state of New York are doing everything to make sure that it happens."
McLaughlin also commented on President Joe Biden's speech in Florida, where he referred to Republicans as extremists.
"The truth of the matter is, it's the Democrats who are the extremists," said McLaughlin. "They've spent $6 trillion we didn't have that cause this crazy inflation. They're not even getting hit on all these tax increases in the Inflation Reduction Act. These are the same folks that have given us open borders."
McLaughlin also pointed out that the people of Israel have returned to conservative government, with the apparent comeback victory for former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Why? Because they don't feel safe and the economy isn't doing well," said McLaughlin. "So what did they do? They went back to the conservatives."
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