What a month it’s been! Starting with President Joe Biden’s trainwreck debate performance a few weeks ago, stumbling and stuttering, with his zinger “We finally beat Medicare,” to an attempted and bungled assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.

Biden then went dark for several days. Border czar and vice president Kamala Harris then emerged as the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee, supposedly raising more money than any candidate in history, securing enough delegates for the nomination without any vote by Democrat voters, and is now leading Trump in the polls.

Biden takes a nap and wakes up to discover he is no longer running for reelection, and while he was asleep, Democrat elites anoint their chosen candidate. Yet Trump is the “threat to democracy”? Welcome to the clown show.

Harris is the same candidate who was so “popular” just four years ago that she dropped out of the Democrat primaries before the first caucus or primary due to her inability to raise money and her polling around 1%. She is now apparently the second coming for the Democrat party. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

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Look at some recent headlines regarding her “popularity”. From The Hill, “Harris holds edge over Trump in new Reuters/Ipsos poll.” Politico is a bit more cautious, “Harris neck-and-neck with Trump after campaign launch, new poll finds.” And from NPR, “Poll: Presidential race hits a reset with Harris vs. Trump.”

Much of the Harris enthusiasm is due to “anyone but Biden” fatigue, Democrats pinned their hopes on a senile old man who destroyed the US economy, opened our borders to anyone and everyone, and has started several wars, if not World War 3 due to his foreign policy ineptitude.

Although Democrats loathe Donald Trump, voting for Biden was a bridge too far for many Democrat voters, and now having another option, a younger, non-corpse-like candidate, even if similarly incompetent, was a breath of fresh air.

But what about the actual poll previously mentioned? The above headlines are from a Reuters/Ipsos poll, “Most Americans support Biden leaving the race, Democrats rally behind Harris.” This confirms Biden fatigue and the relief of another option, the new shiny object for corporate media and paid Democrat shills on Twitter/X to salivate over.

Here is a Reuters headline, “Exclusive: Harris leads Trump 44% to 42% in US presidential race, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds.”

This is a poll of “registered voters”, names on the voter rolls. A more accurate sample would be of “likely voters”, the approach Rasmussen Reports takes in its political opinion polls. Many registered voters rarely or never vote. Likely voters are far more enthusiastic about voting, based on their past voting record.

More important are the political preferences of the survey sample. In the Reuters/Ipsos survey, buried in the methodology, far from the headline, is this gem, “The sample includes 1,018 registered voters, 426 Democrats, 376 Republicans, and 341 Independents.”

In percentages, their poll was 42% Democrat and 37% Republican, a 5-point difference, far more than Harris’s 2-point edge in the poll. Independents only represented 21% of the survey.

Why not poll the studio audience of The View or Jimmy Kimmel Live for an even more pro-Harris sample and result? Garbage in, garbage out.

Is the sample representative of the electorate? Hardly. According to Gallup, the US electorate is currently 25% Republican, 23% Democrat, and 51% Independent, far different than the surveyed sample in the Reuters/Ipsos poll. A skewed sample cannot be extrapolated to the entire voting population.

Another Yahoo! News/YouGov poll found, “Harris ties Trump in a hypothetical matchup, 46% to 46%.” They surveyed 1743 US adults. Are they US citizens or illegal migrants? Are they registered to vote? Did they just happen to answer the pollster’s phone call?

Again, party affiliation is important. In this sample, 33% were self-identified Democrats, and 29% were Republicans, a 4-point difference. Only 38% were Independent, far less than Gallup’s electorate.

Undersampling of Independents skews the poll results away from Donald Trump. Two months ago, Newsweek reported, “Donald Trump crushes Joe Biden among Independents in a new poll.” Weighting a survey sample away from Trump-supporting Republicans and Independents will produce predictably biased poll results.

Here's another way to look at Harris’s sudden popularity is to compare her to Biden. From 538, we can see Biden currently at 39% approval and 56% disapproval. By comparison, Harris is currently at 38% approval and 51% disapproval. Biden and Harris are essentially the same in terms of their political popularity.

Now compare Biden to Trump. In the RealClear Polling average, Trump has a 3-point advantage over Biden, ranging from -2 to +6, with all but one poll showing Trump ahead of Biden.

So now we see Harris, as unpopular as her boss Biden, with Biden behind Trump, suggesting that Harris should also be behind Trump. Yet Harris is now ahead of Trump?

In elementary school math, this was the transitive property. If A=B and B=C, then A=C. Instead, somehow, A became greater than C. This poll failed basic arithmetic.

Now look at the top battleground states where the election will be decided. Real Clear Politics shows that for seven battleground states (AZ, NV, WI, MI, PA, NC, and GA), Trump leads Biden (and by default Harris based on the above reasoning) in every state, with an average lead of 4.4 points.

Finally, Rasmussen Reports last week asked voters about Trump versus Harris. They found Trump up by 7 points, “50% of likely U.S. Voters would vote for Trump, while 43% would vote for Harris.” This was despite oversampling Democrats (35%) versus Republicans (33%) and Independents (32%)

How can these pro-Harris polls be explained? Partially through poorly sampled polls, partially through the “anyone but Biden” phenomenon, and lastly, due to the honeymoon phase bump that Harris is enjoying, at least for now.

Be wary of polls that suddenly show Harris crushing it. The media and Democrat influencers on social media will push these polls, ignoring the unfavorable polls or sampling differentials. Just as the media is gaslighting about Harris being the “border czar”, appointed by President Biden to “lead response to border challenges.”

Remember that many of these polls are designed to influence, not reflect, public opinion. They also represent a snapshot in time, and much can and will change over the next few months. Take them with a big grain of salt, especially when the media is pushing a propaganda narrative that defies math and common sense.

Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a physician and writer. Follow me on Twitter @retinaldoctor, Substack Dr. Brian’s Substack, Truth Social @BrianJoondeph, and LinkedIn @Brian Joondeph.