Rep. Cedric Richmond on Thursday drew a comparison between President Trump and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke in making the case that he doesn’t see hordes of “secret” Trump voters who aren’t currently reflected in public polling.
Mr. Richmond said that coming from Louisiana, he knows the concept of “secret” voters well.
“We had David Duke on the ballot running for governor of the state of Louisiana,” he said on “Fox and Friends.” “He was polling at one number and he came in at a higher number because people didn’t want to tell a live pollster that they were for the guy with bad character and a klansman.”
“What we saw in 2016 was that the touch-tone polls were more accurate because people didn’t want to be judged,” said Mr. Richmond, a top surrogate for Joseph R. Biden’s presidential campaign. “And so we’re doing the polling in several different methods and I don’t believe that there’s this coterie of secret Trump voters out there.”
Host Brian Kilmeade tried to give him an out by saying Mr. Richmond was not saying Mr. Trump and Mr. Duke attract the same voters.
“Well, I’m using it [as] an example [of] secret voters and people who will vote for somebody who may not have great character and who may be questionable in the character column,” Mr. Richmond said.
Mr. Richmond said if anything, there are more “secret” Biden voters “because Republicans are scared to stand up to this president.”
A Monmouth University poll released on Wednesday showed Mr. Biden leading Mr. Trump by double digits in Pennsylvania, even though a majority of voters said they think there are “secret” Trump voters in their communities who support the president but won’t tell anyone about it.
Mr. Duke has publicly supported Mr. Trump.
In February 2016, Mr. Trump said he didn’t know Mr. Duke or know anything about him.
A day later, he said he had previously disavowed him and that he thought he had a faulty earpiece for the previous day’s interview.
A day after that, he said he disavowed all support from white supremacists.
