Prominent pollsters are warning that “fake” polls are being used by media outlets to pressure congressional Republicans into opposing President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” agenda. In a Friday night interview, Trafalgar Group founder Robert Cahaly posited that manipulated and inaccurate polling data is being used to drive a wedge between the president and Republicans in the House and the Senate.

Cahaly said that media outlets “realize that Washington is full of political animals. And if they can convince the people in Congress that Trump is somehow becoming more toxic, then they can damage his agenda.” The veteran pollster explained that many media outlets and pollsters rely on “flawed” soft data to advance a narrative. He continued:

“All this talk that the economy is in huge trouble — the public doesn’t think that. And this talk that people regret their votes for Trump… They’re not backing off their decisions, even though they’re being flooded with people telling them they made the wrong decision, and Trump is doing the wrong thing, and fake polls. They still aren’t backing off.”

In the same interview, InsiderAdvantage founder Matt Towery explained that mainstream media outlets intentionally ignore data from polling firms with reputations for accuracy. “You have InsiderAdvantage, Trafalgar, Emerson, Rasmussen, RMG, all of these polling companies have been ranked at the very top. They have very low error rates. But you never see their polls on any news program,” Towery said. He added, “There’s a blackout on the accurate pollsters.”

A number of polls lately have taken aim at the president and his second-term performance. Newsweek claimed that Trump’s approval rating is “underwater” in every single swing state. According to Civiqs data cited by the news outlet, 49% of Arizonans disapprove of the president and only 47% approve, 51% of Georgians disapprove and 45% approve, 50% of Michiganders disapprove and 46% approve, 49% of Nevadans disapprove and 47% approve, 51% of Pennsylvanians disapprove and 45% approve, and 51% of Wisconsinites disapprove and 46% percent approve. Newsweek also cited a Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) survey claiming that a majority (52%) of Americans would label Trump a “dangerous dictator.”

USA Today recently claimed that Trump’s “100-day approval rating is the lowest of any president in the last 80 years.” The magazine’s op-ed continued, “If the president had an overwhelming mandate, voters wouldn’t be so quick to push his approval rating underwater. Polls indicate that as few as 39% of Americans approve of Trump’s actions.” Vanity Fair also cited low Trump approval ratings to bolster the claim that the president “is losing his grip on the story he’s always controlled best — his own. His mixed messages on tariffs, contradictory economic claims, and increasingly obvious attempts to deflect blame have created narrative whiplash.” The Guardian pointed to approval rating numbers as evidence that “political gravity is exerting itself.”

MSNBC, on the other hand, noted that whether or not the president has strong approval ratings, Trump voters don’t regret their vote. A recent PRRI survey found that 92% of Trump voters are satisfied with how they voted. A University of Massachusetts Amherst survey discovered that only 2% of Trump voters regretted their vote. A New York Times focus group study also found that Independent voters who backed Trump in November are satisfied with their decision.

Towery, in his comments Friday, explained why so many pollsters show the president achieving such low approval ratings. “Our poll that we have right now has Trump up 46 to 44. But there’s a big ‘but’ to that: 10% are undecided,” the pollster said. He continued, “Robert Cahaly and I both know, when we see ‘undecided,’ and you’ve had a string of polls showing that he was down, that means that undecided is probably going to distribute probably 70 to 80% to Trump. We just don’t force people to have to choose. And that’s the difference.” He added that Trump’s approval score, in actual numbers, “is definitely on the rise.”

Vice President J.D. Vance dismissed poor polling numbers in an interview last week, citing the prevalence of inaccurate and deceptive polling practices. “In the modern era, 2025, opinion pollsters just don’t know how to capture most Americans. They don’t answer the phones. If they do answer the phone, they hang up immediately,” the vice president said. He said that he is “skeptical” of polling results, adding, “I think that [if] you do a good job, you worry about the polls later.” Vance continued, “I also just don’t really care that much about the polls — even if they were accurate — because if we do a good job, if people see the results, then in three years, people will be talking about what a great job Donald J. Trump and J.D. Vance did.” He added, “That’s all I really care about.”

Despite low approval ratings, CNN’s chief data analyst Harry Enten shared that Trump is still handling the presidency better than Americans believe Democrats would. According to Enten, 45% of voters said that Trump is doing a better job than they expect former Vice President Kamala Harris, who ran against Trump in November, would be doing within her first 100 days as president, had she not lost to Trump. Only 43% said that they believe Harris would be doing a better job, and 12% said they expect Harris would be doing just as well or as poorly as Trump. Enten also noted that while only 40% of Americans polled said that they trust Trump to address key problems facing the nation, only 32% trust the Democratic Party to do the same.

“When you match Donald Trump against his actual competition, Donald Trump comes out ahead,” Enten explained. He continued, “That is why Democrats, in fact, cannot count their chickens just yet, because those eggs have not cracked at this particular moment.” The data analyst further warned, “If Democrats think that at this particular point, just because Donald Trump is unpopular, that they’re going to run away with it like a Heisman Trophy winner — that is not necessarily the case. These numbers should be a major wake-up moment for Democrats.”