The Very Stable Genius thinks he can stamp his foot and his bad poll numbers will go away

He just can't believe that it would be the case that he's trailing. So he has his campaign send this:

President Donald Trump's campaign is demanding CNN retract and apologize for a recent poll that showed him well behind presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

The demand, coming in the form of a cease and desist letter to CNN President Jeff Zucker, was immediately rejected by the network.

"We stand by our poll," said Matt Dornic, a CNN spokesman.

The CNN poll conducted by SSRS and released on Monday shows Trump trailing the former vice president by 14 points, 55%-41%, among registered voters. It also finds the President's approval rating at 38% -- his worst mark since January 2019, and roughly on par with approval ratings for one-term Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush at this point in their reelection years -- and his disapproval rating at 57%. 

Soon after the poll was released, Trump tweeted that he had hired Republican pollster McLaughlin & Associates to "analyze" the CNN poll and others, "which I felt were FAKE based on the incredible enthusiasm we are receiving." McLaughlin ranks as one of the least accurate pollsters in the industry, as measured by FiveThirtyEight. 

Several other polls released over the past few weeks -- including polls by ABC News/Washington Post, Monmouth University, NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist College, NBC News/Wall Street Journal, Quinnipiac University and Fox News -- also show Biden well ahead of Trump. These polls, averaged with the CNN poll, find Biden up by double digits, a result well outside any margin of error.
In the letter to Zucker, the Trump campaign argued that the CNN poll is "designed to mislead American voters through a biased questionnaire and skewed sampling."

"It's a stunt and a phony poll to cause voter suppression, stifle momentum and enthusiasm for the President, and present a false view generally of the actual support across America for the President," read the letter, signed by the Trump campaign's senior legal adviser Jenna Ellis and chief operating officer Michael Glassner.

The campaign formally requested that CNN retract the poll and publish a "full, fair, and conspicuous retraction, apology, and clarification to correct its misleading conclusions."

The letter, which heavily cites findings by McLaughlin, makes several incorrect and misleading claims.

"It's a poll of 1,259 adults -- not even registered voters, let alone likely voters," the letter says, citing a McLaughlin memo from earlier this week.

While it's accurate that 1,259 adults were reached on landlines or cell phones by a live interviewer for the survey, the 14-point margin by which Trump is trailing Biden came from a question posed only to 1,125 registered voters. It's typical for polling to sample registered voters rather than likely ones at this stage of the race, as it's difficult to project whether voters will participate in an election that is five months away. CNN, as do most public pollsters, typically reports results from likely voters around Labor Day. 

Reality's a bitch, ain't it, Mr. President? Here's a tip: It won't get any less so between now and November. Time to drastically shift strategy. Or maybe consider dropping out.