'Not true': Biden's repeated calls that polls underestimated him in 2020 come under fire

President Biden's claim about past election polling underestimating him was fact-checked by a data analyst on Monday, after the president referred to the past cycle to dispute current polling putting him behind Donald Trump.

"Biden is saying that 2020 polls underestimated him, so why believe them now? When it comes to the general election, that's not true," CNN data reporter Harry Enten reacted on X. "Polls overestimated him. Biden's in his worst poll position ever against Trump. He's the first Democrat to trail in national July polls since 2000."

The president has cast doubt on polling showing him narrowly trailing former President Trump in recent media interviews. The grim numbers have powered calls from some liberal corners for Biden to step aside from the nomination.

"They were wrong in 2020. They were wrong in 2022 about the red wave. They’re wrong in 2024 and come out with me and watch people react. You make a judgment," Biden told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Monday.

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File photos of President Biden (left) and former President Donald Trump  (AP Photo/Alex Brandon / Curtis Means/DailyMail.com via AP, Pool)

Biden similarly discounted polls showing him lagging behind Trump when talking to ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Friday. 

"I carried an awful lot of Democrats last time I ran in 2020. Look, I remember them telling me the same thing in 2020, 'I can't win, the polls show I can't win.' Remember 2024 -- 2020 -- the red wave was coming. Before the vote, 'I said that's not going to happen, we're going to win,'" he said.

In reports on CNN on Monday, Enten cited aggregated polling from the 2020 election and past two midterm elections to argue that polling was fairly spot-on in the midterms and actually overestimated Biden's chances against Trump during the 2020 election.

"I keep hearing Joe Biden say, well, the polls have underestimated me in the past, just like they‘re underestimating right now. The polls in 2020 did not, in fact, underestimate him. In fact, Joe Biden‘s worst polling position against Donald Trump in the general election, he was still up. He was still up by four points. And that was in April of 2020," Enten said on CNN Monday.

When comparing July 2020 to July 2024, the differences were even greater. According to Enten's analysis, Biden held a 9-point lead over Trump in July of 2020. Trump now holds a 3-point advantage over Biden.

"So this 3-point advantage for Donald Trump is Donald Trump‘s best position versus Joe Biden. Whether you include the polls this year or you include the polls last cycle, the idea that the polls underestimated Joe Biden last time around, simply put, does not hold any water," he concluded.

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Joe Biden was favored by polls in the 2020 general election.

Enten also poured cold water on the argument that Biden could be comparing current polls in the 2024 cycle to Democratic primary polls from early 2020.

The future president faced a rocky start during the primaries in 2020, taking a fourth-place finish in Iowa and fifth-place in New Hampshire that February. However, buoyed by a victory in South Carolina and a flood of endorsements from other Democrats who dropped out, he rolled on Super Tuesday in March and sailed to the nomination.

"In fact, if you were to look back at the 2020 national Democratic primary polls, they mostly had Biden ahead — except for that little small portion, right, when he lost Iowa and then lost New Hampshire and then lost in Nevada," Enten said. "But overall, those primary polls had him ahead and then he won, and certainly when it came to the general election the polls always had Joe Biden [ahead]."

General election polls consistently favored Biden to win in a match-up against Trump in the 2020 cycle.

Despite mounting pressure to withdraw after his shaky first debate performance, Biden has remained steadfast in his decision to stay in the race. In a letter to congressional Democrats on Monday, Biden called for a unified party and rebuffed calls from within his own party to drop out as helping the other side.

The Biden campaign had no comment when reached by Fox News Digital. 

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Enten added Tuesday that Biden's polling woes were endangering any opportunity for Democrats to take back the House, where Republicans have a tiny majority. If he loses in November, Enten warned, Democrats would almost surely lose the Senate as well, giving Republicans full governmental control.