Pence: 'Something missing' from polls showing Trump trailing

Polls showing a widening gap between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump with just weeks to go until Election Day are missing something, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said Friday morning, because they fail to capture the enthusiasm the GOP nominee has stirred among American voters.

A Fox News poll released Thursday night put the former secretary of state up 7 percentage points over Trump, 45 percent to 38 percent, among likely voters nationwide. That poll follows one earlier this week from the Wall Street Journal and NBC News that put Clinton up by 9 points.


Both polls were conducted after last Friday’s release of a recording of Trump from 2005 in which the real estate mogul can be heard describing in vulgar terms how his celebrity status allowed him to sexually assault women with impunity. Trump said at Sunday night’s presidential debate that he had never actually committed the actions he described in the tape, but in the days since its release, a flurry of women have come forward with allegations of sexual assault against the GOP nominee.

The tape’s release also prompted a wave of prominent Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, Sen. John McCain, Rep. Jason Chaffetz and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to distance themselves from Trump’s candidacy, if not abandon it all together.

“Look, you know, it's the old cliché, the only poll that really matters, they finish up on November the 8th,” Pence said when asked about the Clinton’s growing lead in the polls. “I think these polls have been all over the map. I honestly think there's something missing in the polling these days.”

“What do you mean?” Fox News host Brian Kilmeade responded.

“Well, it's just, I think Donald Trump has made a connection to the frustrations and the aspirations of everyday Americans like no one in my lifetime since Ronald Reagan,” the Indiana governor replied. “When you see, against this avalanche, present company excepted here at Fox News, but this avalanche of negative media coverage that goes chasing after every potential, every potential negative story about Donald Trump every day, and still you see tens of thousands of people coming out and rallying, there's a determination out there across the country to change the direction in this nation.”

“And frankly more than 7 out of 10 Americans think that America is headed in the wrong direction and they know it's going to take change,” he continued. “I truly do believe that come Election Day there could be a whole lot of people that are surprised in the mainstream national press about the way the American people have been willing to rise up and embrace new leadership in Donald Trump.”