President Joe Biden recently expressed irritation with the press over coverage of his poll numbers — but his campaign maintained it's too far out from Election Day to rely on those surveys, reported The Hill.
A Quinnipiac University poll showed Biden narrowly ahead of former President Donald Trump, 48% to 45%. An aggregation of more than 600 polls has Trump with a 0.9 percentage point lead over Biden.
Biden has often complained about the poll coverage to rooms full of donors, according to The Hill.
"While we probably haven't read a lot about it, in the last few days, there have been several national polls showing us leading now," Biden said during a campaign stop Tuesday in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Last week in Houston, Biden's rhetoric was similar.
"While we probably haven't read a lot about it, in the last few days, there has been five national polls. The press — well, I like the press, but they don't talk about it very much. Five national polls having us leading since my State of the Union address," he said.
At a campaign reception on March 19 in Reno, Nevada, he stated: "By the way — and the press are all good guys in here — but they report a lot of polls.
"The last four polls out, we're winning. OK? But guess what? None of these polls mean a damn thing this early on, so we just got to keep at it."
Democratic communications strategist Katie Grant Drew said the president was likely "responding to a truism of campaign media coverage, which is that negative polls, by their very nature, draw more press attention. It's a necessary strategy for the president and his team to highlight positive numbers with donors to encourage and strengthen their support."