Trump took a very dangerous step by changing his tactics and team at this point, especially since his moves on Monday only empowered his opponent and sowed the seeds of doubt regarding loyalty on his own side

Corrected polls show Trump had large lead over Clinton just before Lewandowski was fired

In contrast to the “pants on fire” claims by liberal and faux conservative journalists, there hasn’t been a single poll in recent weeks before the firing of Corey Lewandowski that, once corrected for known bias, shows anything other than a Trump-Clinton tie, or even a Trump lead. Polling data last week were staged by the uni-party so the GOPe could use the data as leverage to take control—at least partially—of Trump’s campaign. This required the apparent use—if we believe the “sourced” rumor mill—of bad polling data to justify Corey Lewandowski’s unceremonious firing. This was a campaign coup d’état on trumped-up charges. Nothing more, nothing less. More evidence of the actual position Trump’s campaign was in as of Monday comes from two new polls.

The Reuters Polling Explorer five-day rolling average on Monday showed, prior to correction, that Trump was behind Clinton by 9.7%, 41.0% to 31.3%. But of the 1,625 respondents, 776 (48%) were Democrats and just 505 (31%) were Republicans, for a 17% bias in favor of Democrats that is about 16% higher than it should be. Of those 1,625 respondents, 666 (an appropriately ominous number; 41%) voted for Obama in 2012. Just 399 (24.5%) voted for Romney in 2012. This converts to a 13% net bias since Obama only beat Romney by 3.9%, and representative polling today should still reflect that distribution. Translation: corrected Reuters polling had Trump in the lead by from about 3-6% over Trump. The Economist/YouGov conducted a poll from June 18-20, reporting that Clinton led Trump by 4%. Of the 1,011 respondents, 425 (42%) were Democrats and only 247 (24%) were Republicans, for a 18% Democrat edge that is 17% larger than it should be. Translation: corrected Economist/YouGov polling had Trump in the lead by about 13%.

Also of note is that, according to YouGov, >99.5% of their survey’s respondents weighed in on June 18 and 19, meaning the poll clearly reflects public opinion in the two days before Lewandowski was fired, and is effectively entirely untainted by respondents who may have heard the news on Monday. Time will tell what the impacts of Trump’s “new strategy” and campaign capitulation to the GOPe are, but whatever he was doing with Lewandowski in charge was clearly working well. Many on the right were hysterical about money issues, and the purported lack of organization, which—in tandem with the spurious use of flawed polling data—apparently led to Lewandowski’s downfall. Of course, Trump won the GOP nomination without spending massive amounts of money, nor with a highly organized and large ground team. The experts said it couldn’t be done, but Trump did it. In fact, people voted for Trump precisely because his GOP nomination campaign was different. There is no reason to believe the general election could not have been won by a continuation of that approach. Give the voters what they want and they will reward you. Give them the same pablum that failed in five of the last six presidential elections when it comes to the popular vote, and they will punish you. Trump took a very dangerous step by changing his tactics and team at this point, especially since his moves on Monday only empowered his opponent and sowed the seeds of doubt regarding loyalty on his own side.

Sierra Rayne -- Bio and Archives Sierra Rayne holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry and writes regularly on environment, energy, and national security topics. He can be found on Twitter at @srayne_ca

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