Monmouth Disavows Their Own Poll Showing Biden Dropping To Third Place

Matt Margolis | 9:12 PM on August 28, 2019

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden approaches reporters to answer questions following a campaign stop at Lindy's Diner in Keene, N.H., Saturday, Aug. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

When a Monmouth University Poll that was released Monday showed Joe Biden dropping to third place in the Democratic presidential primary, it was immediately dismissed as an outlier by the Biden campaign. “This poll is an outlier that is contradicted by every measure of the national average,” said a Biden campaign spokesman in a statement. Still, many in the media jumped on the poll, speculating that this was the beginning of the end of his campaign. But, on Wednesday, Patrick Murray, the director of the poll, threw cold water on this idea and disavowed the results of his own poll.

But after seeing results from other national polls, Patrick Murray who is responsible for Monmouth’s canvassing, now says he feels the recent Monmouth significantly lower numbers for Biden are an outlier. He said, “ this is a product of the uncertainty that is inherent in the polling process. It occurs infrequently, but every pollster who has been in this business a while recognizes that outliers happen.”

A full statement was posted to Twitter on Wednesday.

Statement from poll director @PollsterPatrick
regarding this week's poll: [date corrected] pic.twitter.com/Xelpw1pt9j

— MonmouthPoll (@MonmouthPoll) August 28, 2019

In a statement to Fox News, Murray said, “We maintain confidence in the credibility of our polling methodology and, specifically, will continue to include these results as part of our trend line in tracking the 2020 Democratic race. We are simply acknowledging the context that these results are different from the polling average and as such should be considered in that context.”

Anyone familiar with polling knows that outliers happen, so the rush to judgment on the health of Biden’s campaign was premature, but that doesn’t mean Biden’s out of the woods either. His recent gaffes must have plenty in the Democratic Party wondering if he has the mental acuity to be their party’s nominee. When Joe Biden himself has to claim he’s “not going nuts” then you have real problems.