Donald Trump’s Campaign Manager Insists “Undercover Trump Voters” Will Defy the Polls

Kellyanne Conway introduces America’s “hidden Trump vote.”


Taking a page out of last week’s “says who” denial playbook, Donald Trump’s newly appointed campaign manager Kellyanne Conway is dismissing near-universal polls that show the Republican presidential candidate is lagging far behind his rival Hillary Clinton.

Conway’s logic, which she explained in an interview with the United Kingdom’s Channel 4 on Tuesday, relies heavily on supporters she described as “undercover voters” who will inevitably break their silence and vote for Trump this November. These voters, Conway reasoned, will click for Trump in online polls but are currently reluctant to admit their political leanings to pollsters. So why won’t they speak up?

“It’s become socially desirable, especially if you’re a college educated person in the United States of America, to say that you’re against Donald Trump,” Conway said. “The hidden Trump vote is a very significant proposition.”

When asked if she could provide numbers for this invisible population, Conway quickly deflected. “I can’t discuss it,” she said. “It’s a project we’re doing internally. I call it the undercover Trump voter, but it’s real.”

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It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

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So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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