--- title: Donald Trump Argues Polling Methods Are Rigged Against Him description: Donald Trump's newest conspiracy theory is that pollsters are over-sampling Democrats to make it seem like he's down in the polls. canonical: https://time.com/4543481/donald-trump-polling-democrats-rigged/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-10-24T20:17:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:45:25.736Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Argues Polling Methods Are Rigged Against Him og:description: But his comments misrepresent what a leaked email refers to. og:url: https://time.com/4543481/donald-trump-polling-democrats-rigged/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt714ae2266b2ce925/6988ab5ff887dc55b0e97ec4/donald-trump13.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Trump meets with law enforcement and first responders at the St. Johns County Sheriff's Department in St. Augustine, Florida og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Argues Polling Methods Are Rigged Against Him twitter:description: But his comments misrepresent what a leaked email refers to. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt714ae2266b2ce925/6988ab5ff887dc55b0e97ec4/donald-trump13.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump Argues Polling Methods Are Rigged Against Him > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Oct 24, 2016 8:17 PM UTC  Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump meets with law enforcement and first responders at the St. Johns County Sheriff's Department in St. Augustine, Fla. on Oct. 24, 2016. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump meets with law enforcement and first responders at the St. Johns County Sheriff's Department in St. Augustine, Fla. on Oct. 24, 2016.Jonathan Ernst—Reuters  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Oct 24, 2016 8:17 PM UTC Donald Trump’s newest [conspiracy theory](http://time.com/4530568/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-conspiracy/?iid=sr-link1) is that pollsters are over-sampling Democrats to make it seem like he’s down in the polls. “When the polls are even, when they leave them alone and do them properly, I’m leading,” he said at a rally in St. Augustine, Florida, Monday afternoon. “But you see these polls where they’re polling Democrats, ‘How’s Trump doing?’ ‘Oh, he’s down.’ They’re polling Democrats!” Trump signaled his new theory in a tweet Monday morning, writing, “Major story that the Dems are making up phony polls in order to suppress the the Trump . We are going to WIN!” As evidence, Trump said in St. Augustine that “Wikileaks also shows how John Podesta rigged the polls by oversampling Democrats, a voter suppression technique.” He was apparently referencing a 2008 email revealed in the email hack of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman. The email, by Democratic activist Tom Matzzie, reads, “I also want to get your Atlas folks to recommend oversamples for our polling before we start in February. By market, regions, etc. I want to get this all compiled into one set of recommendations so we can maximize what we get out of our media polling.” But [as the Washington _Post_ explains](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/24/very-bad-analysis-of-a-2008-email-is-donald-trumps-new-excuse-for-why-hes-losing/), Trump’s comment fundamentally misrepresents what this email is talking about. This campaign email would be referring to an internal poll, not a public one. And polls often need to over sample certain subgroups to get statistically accurate data. “Normal polling in a state will usually have no problem getting enough white people in the mix to evaluate where they stand, but you may need to specifically target more black or Hispanic voters to get a statistically relevant sample size,” the _Post_ explains. It’s also worth noting that more Americans identify as Democrats than Republicans: 30% to 24%, [according to Pew Research](http://www.pewresearch.org/data-trend/political-attitudes/party-identification/). Trump himself even admitted that he is “somewhat behind in the polls” in a North Carolina radio interview on Monday, [Politico reports](http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/trump-says-trailing-in-polls-230233). Still, in St. Augustine, Trump chalked up his campaign’s current state to the Clintons, the media and elites conspiring against his candidacy. “When the people who control the political power in our society can rig investigations, can rig polls, you see these phony polls, and rig the media, they can wield absolute power over your life, your economy and your country, and benefit big time by it,” Trump told his audience. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4543481/donald-trump-polling-democrats-rigged/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4543481/donald-trump-polling-democrats-rigged/"},"headline":"Donald Trump Argues Polling Methods Are Rigged Against Him","datePublished":"2016-10-24T20:17:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:45:25.736Z","description":"Donald Trump's newest conspiracy theory is that pollsters are over-sampling Democrats to make it seem like he's down in the polls.","url":"https://time.com/4543481/donald-trump-polling-democrats-rigged/","keywords":["Donald Trump","2016 Election"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt714ae2266b2ce925/6988ab5ff887dc55b0e97ec4/donald-trump13.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt714ae2266b2ce925/6988ab5ff887dc55b0e97ec4/donald-trump13.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Trump meets with law enforcement and first responders at the St. Johns County Sheriff's Department in St. Augustine, Florida","caption":"Trump meets with law enforcement and first responders at the St. Johns County Sheriff's Department in St. Augustine, Florida","creditText":"Jonathan Ernst—Reuters","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4543481/donald-trump-polling-democrats-rigged/","name":"Donald Trump Argues Polling Methods Are Rigged Against Him"}}]}] ```