Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign is urging supporters not to let down their guard in the final stretch of the presidential race suggesting in a memo that “even the best polling can be wrong.”
“We cannot become complacent because the very searing truth is that Donald Trump can still win this race, and every indication we have shows that this thing is going to come down to the wire,” Biden campaign manager Jennifer O’Malley Dillon wrote in a memo to supporters obtained by the Washington Post.
Dillon said that although many national polls show a widening lead for the Democratic candidate, polls can lack precision or be faulty, which appeared to be the case in 2016.
The memo further warned that Biden held only a slim lead in some key battleground states and Biden’s campaign manager urged Democratic supporters to stay focused in the last leg of the race in spite of a shifting attitude and move by some GOP senators to distance themselves from the President in what some within the party have projected as a potential Republican loss of the White House in November.
“While we see robust leads at the national level, in the states we’re counting on to carry us to victory like Arizona and North Carolina we’re only up by three points,” Dillon said, according to the Post. “We also know that even the best polling can be wrong, and that variables like turnout mean that in a number of critical states we are functionally tied — and that we need to campaign like we’re trailing.”
A number of polls have shown Biden with a healthy lead, but polling averages offer a different picture, Dillon said.
“This race is far closer than some of the punditry we’re seeing on Twitter and on TV would suggest,” she wrote. “In the key battleground states where this election will be decided, we remain neck and neck with Donald Trump.”
“If we learned anything from 2016, it’s that we cannot underestimate Donald Trump or his ability to claw his way back into contention in the final days of a campaign, through whatever smears or underhanded tactics he has at his disposal,” she added.
According to The New York Times, Dillon made a similar pleas urging grass-roots supporters to beat back complacency during a call with Biden backers on Friday. She contended during the call that Biden was not as comfortably ahead as some public polls have suggested.
“Please take the fact that we are not ahead by double digits,” she said. “Those are inflated national public polling numbers.” Still, she was particularly bullish on Arizona on the call: “I know we’re going to win Arizona,” she said.
She predicted that the Trump campaign would throw “the kitchen sink at us” in the final stretch and called on supporters to continue volunteering and donating.
Dillion said the campaign hopes to raise an additional $234 million before Election Day after entering October with a record-breaking $432 million the Times said.
