Pod Save America host and former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau said Friday that before Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race in July, his campaign’s internal polls showed Donald Trump beating him in a rematch with at least 400 electoral votes.
Favreau also blamed the Biden camp for simultaneously downplaying polls showing the president was unpopular.
“He and his inner circle, they refused to believe the polls. They refused to believe he was unpopular. They refused to acknowledge until very late that anyone could be upset about inflation,” he said.
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“And they just kept telling us that his presidency was historic and it was the greatest economy ever. We just heard him again say that it’s the greatest economy ever. Clearly, 70, 80 percent of voters don’t believe that. They don’t believe that about their own personal financial situation, but they just keep telling us that.”
Favreau added that the Biden campaign was “shivving” Harris by “privately telling reporters” she couldn’t beat Trump.
“After the debate, the Biden people told us that the polls were fine and Biden was still the strongest candidate. They were privately telling reporters at the time that Kamala Harris couldn‘t win,” he said. “So, they were shivving Kamala Harris to reporters while they told everyone else, ’Not a time for an open process.’”
Favreau continued:
“Then we find out when the Biden campaign becomes the Harris campaign, that the Biden campaign’s own internal polling—at the time when they were telling us he was the strongest candidate—showed that Donald Trump was going to win 400 electoral votes."
Since Election Day, there was been a good deal of finger-pointing in Democratic circles, with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for instance, telling The New York Times that an open primary may have been more beneficial to Harris.
