We all remember how much Trump used to love polls. Used to love them. Talked about them at every campaign stop. Cited their authority regularly; touted his leads as evidence during the Republican primary that he would win. And the polls were right: He did.

Over the course of the general election, with an electorate being polled that is made up of more than Republicans, Trump has been far less enthusiastic about the polling. His regular tweets of good poll numbers faded out and his description of polls got looped into his excoriations of the media. No longer were polls showing him ahead the product of “respected pollsters”; now polls showing him trailing were a result of the biased media.

With polls open across the country, there's not much point in complaining about polling. But Donald Trump went on “Fox and Friends” on the morning of Election Day to complain about polling.

DONALD TRUMP: I do think a lot of the polls are purposely wrong. I think, I can almost tell you by the people that do it — the media is very dishonest. Extremely dishonest. And I think a lot of the polls are phony. I don't even think they interview people. HOST BRIAN KILMEADE: Right. TRUMP: I think they just put out phony numbers. I do think this: After the debates, I think my numbers really started to go up well. And then I did a series of the last two weeks only of, only of really important speeches, I think. And, you know, 20,000, 25,000 people, 31,000 people were showing up to these speeches.

First of all, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, the proper response to “I don't even think they interview people” is not “Right.” It is, “That is ridiculous.” You know who does polling? Fox News. Fox released a new poll Monday showing Clinton with a four-point lead nationally. For that poll, the network spoke with 1,410 people. Or, I guess, it pretended to? Kilmeade seems to think that's possible.

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Could pollsters make up numbers? Sure. Anyone could. Is there any valid reason to do so? No. There have been occasions in the past when pollsters have made up numbers, such as when, in 2009, Nate Silver called out a firm called Strategic Vision that he said was making up numbers. But as with in-person voter fraud, the vast majority of polling is completely on the up-and-up, whether you like the results or not. There is no evidence that either in-person voter fraud or made-up poll numbers happens with any regularity at all, but the murky implication that such things might exist is hard to disprove. That's why Trump mentions each: It allows him to shift the blame for a loss somewhere else.

Part of what's happening here certainly is that for a candidate in a bubble of family, sycophants and rally attendees, a poll can seem jarringly at odds with personal experience. I often think of a candidate for a minor office in rural California that I met a decade ago. He assured people that he would win because everyone at his church said they were going to vote for him. He came in dead last. His perception of the state of things, based on what he was seeing around him, was at odds with reality.

That's why Trump cites those crowds. Look at all these people at my rally/my church! They love me! Sure, if Trump had a 31,000-person crowd recently (which he didn't), it shows a remarkable level of support and enthusiasm in that area. But it's also 0.05 percent of the votes Mitt Romney got in 2012. There are more than 30,000 Evan McMullin fans in Utah. If he got a rally of them together, it wouldn't mean he's about to be president. (Or win Utah.)

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The bubble in which a candidate lives can extend outward nationally. Americans are less likely to live near people that differ from them politically than they used to be. In August we noted that many supporters of Trump and Clinton say they don't know anyone supporting the other candidate.

This is a good reason we do polls — meaning we, the press. The Post polls with ABC News to get a picture of the broad range of political opinions in the country. We use statistically sound methodologies and conduct landline and cellphone interviews in English and Spanish with the aim of seeing past the bubble in which any of us lives. There's no reason for The Post or any other media company to make up poll results. We use the numbers ourselves.

All of that said, though, Donald Trump could still win! Polls operate in a realm of uncertainty that, unlike Trump, they acknowledge. They are contingent on turnout estimates, which may be flawed. At the state level, Trump's running close in a number of battleground states that could flip the electoral college to him. The polls he disparages show explicitly that Trump might win. Which the media is making up for some reason? I'm not sure.

It's possible that Trump has internal polling that, thanks to using different models of turnout, show him doing better than what he sees nationally. (It's also possible that he doesn't.) Trump may also be hoping to continue to sow uncertainty among his supporters as he has for weeks, part of his effort to undercut the day's results, should he choose to do so.

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Either way, whatever the reason, Trump's wrong. The polls might hint of a Clinton win that doesn't happen, but that's the thing with polls. Because pollsters do their best to gauge the electorate, there are ways in which we know polls can get things wrong. If Clinton does win, there are two possible reasons. One is that more Americans in key states wanted her to, a choice reflected in national and state polling. The other is that the polls were part of a massive national conspiracy to prevent Trump from being the president.