I’m not one for conspiracy theories but…
My tin hat tendencies are a-tingling with all this “Poll Trutherism” going on. After all, if the fix was in, now would be the time to start crowing about how the polls were so obviously wrong. That way you could point to this criticism and say “Look we were right!”
Occam’s Razor suggests that it’s just a desperate attempt to change the election narrative and influence momentum, but I trust Karl Rove about as far as I can throw him.
