Niagara Tweet takes ride on Air Force One
Former NDP candidate says poll information only told half the story
Curtis Fric couldn’t believe it when a co-worker told him that polling information he posted on social media had been printed off and left for U.S. journalists aboard Air Force One.
“I looked at it and I was like, that can’t be real,” he said.
Fric, a recent Brock political science graduate and senior writer for political website Lean Tossup, said his co-worker sent him a photograph that was posted on Twitter by ABC journalist Katherine Faulders Sunday afternoon showing a printed page of polling information compiled by CBS/YouGov — the same information that Fric posted on social media that morning.
“When we boarded Air Force One just now, a printout of this poll was left on every seat in the press cabin,” Faulder wrote in the caption.
Fric said he had no doubt it was his Tweet that had been left for reporters, because the photographed page included his “Polling USA” logo at the top. And despite his initial disbelief,
Fric was shocked when he realized the picture was indeed posted on the journalist’s Twitter account.
Fric, who has been running the Polling USA social media accounts as a hobby, said he suspected something unusual was happening that morning.
“I knew it was being retweeted by more conservative-leaning Twitter users,” he said.
And that was unusual for the 22-year-old former Jordan resident who ran unsuccessfully in Niagara West for the New Democratic Party in the 2018 provincial election.
“It was kind of surprising,” he said, adding he also noticed that it was retweeted by a Republican Party strategist.
“It kind of just went on from there, and then a couple of hours later it’s on Air Force One,” said Fric, who now lives in St. Catharines.
The polling information focused on voters who had yet to cast their ballots in three “battleground” states, showing
President Donald Trump leading former vice-president Joe Biden by 59 to 40 per cent in Florida, by 54 to 44 per cent in Georgia and by 58 to 41 per cent in North Carolina.
But Fric said that data was only half the story he was trying to share.
The rest of the information showed overwhelming support for Biden in the three states among people who had already voted — 61 per cent for Biden compared to 37 per cent for Trump in Florida; 55 to 43 per cent in North Carolina and 61 to 36 per cent in North Carolina.
After closely following and analyzing numerous U.S. election polls this year, Fric said he’s confident there will soon be a new president south of the border.
“We’re now eight days out from the election, and when you are getting polls that have (Republican strongholds) Texas and Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina and Florida either tied or with Biden ahead — on top of the states that Biden needs to win — he has so many roads to an electoral victory that Trump does not,” Fric said.