Critics scoffed as former President Donald Trump appeared to release internal polls showing him within the margin of error in five of seven swing states.
His pollsters, Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates, tried to spin it as a huge success and that he was "winning" the race.
But critics weren't buying it.
Statistician and writer Nate Silver pointed out, "Internal polls typically have a bias of ~3 points toward their candidate, so these numbers are about what you'd expect from the campaign given the public data. Also, consistent with public polls in showing Trump doing better in GA/AZ than the other swing states."
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"The best Trump could pull together for leaked internals is Harris within the margin of error in 6 of the 7 battlegrounds? That’s kind of weak, man," criticized national security lawyer Bradley Moss.
Silver later posted on X that it was possible one candidate, "Either Trump or [Kamala] Harris, sweeps all seven battlegrounds just because they're all very close and polling error is correlated. About a 40% chance of that, in fact."
Legal analyst Allison Gill brought back some 2016 election history.
"Reminder: Fabrizio was questioned by Mueller for handing polling data to Gates -> Manafort -> Kilimnik -> Deripaska -> Kremlin," she said.
Democratic strategist Mike Nellis noted that when a presidential campaign releases their internals it's typically a "sign of weakness."
He also agreed with Silver's comment that there is likely a partisan slant of 2-4%.
"For all the bluster, this is not a campaign acting with a lot of confidence right now," he said.
