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Plouffe Love

John McLaughlin, Trump’s favorite pollster, returns to run the numbers on the final leg of the campaign: How Trump is expanding his base with unreliable first-time voters, Kamala’s ceiling, and what her advisor David Plouffe gets right and wrong about the race.

Trump confidant and longtime pollster John McLaughlin evinces the same supreme confidence in his polls that he did in April—but the specifics of his argument are notable.
Trump confidant and longtime pollster John McLaughlin evinces the same supreme confidence in his polls that he did in April—but the specifics of his argument are notable. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Tara Palmeri
October 15, 2024

Back in April, I sat down with longtime Trump confidant John McLaughlin, Mar-a-Lago’s go-to pollster, for a wide-ranging conversation about the state of the presidential race. At the time, Joe Biden was still white-knuckling the top of the Democratic ticket. McLaughlin, assessing the public numbers and the Trump campaign’s own internal polling, couldn’t have been happier or more confident about their odds.