Clay Travis reveals 'staggering' number of people in sports world are voting for Trump, scared of backlash

Sports commentator Clay Travis revealed Monday that a "staggering" number of people in the sports world from all walks of life have told him privately that they will vote for President Donald Trump.

Last week, Travis, the founder of OutKick, revealed that he would vote for Trump. Travis, who twice voted for Barack Obama, told his readers in an essay, "On Tuesday, I will vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election."

What is Travis saying now?

Presumably after he went public with his pro-Trump essay, Travis said a "staggering" number of people in the sports industry have reached out to him about also supporting Trump, but won't go public because they fear backlash.

"The number of men & women in sports media, of all races, who reached out to say they are voting for @realDonaldTrump, but are afraid to say so on social media because of the Twitter blue checkmark brigade in sports is staggering," Travis explained.

"How many people in all industries are like this?" he added.

In a subsequent tweet, Travis highlighted the fact that many Trump supporters don't make their support for the president known.

"That's the most fascinating thing about this election to me, the quiet number of supporters. The most rebellious thing you can do is vote Trump because Trump has made the Republican Party the counter culture this election," Travis said. "It's wild."

What are 'shy Trump' voters?

One of the polling errors that experts have cited as possibly giving a false indication of Joe Biden's winnability is the so-called "shy Trump" voter, those who don't reveal to pollsters that they will, in fact, vote for Trump.

Even though mainstream media outlets like the Washington Post and Vox claim "shy Trump" voters don't exist, they do — and pollsters who correctly predicted Trump's 2016 election victory say "shy Trump" voters could make the difference again this year in Trump's favor.

In fact, Robert Cahaly of the Trafalgar Group — which correctly predicted Trump's win in the Rust Belt — said there may be even more "shy Trump" voters this year because of the social backlash that has come from supporting the president.

"In 2016, the worst being said about Trump voters is that they were 'deplorable.' 2020 is a whole different ballgame," Cahaly told Politico.

"This year had more things where you can get punished for expressing an opinion outside the mainstream than almost any year I can think of in modern history," Cahaly explained. "I'm finding that people are very hesitant [to share their preference for Trump], because now it's not just being called 'deplorable.' It's people getting beat up for wearing the wrong hat, people getting harassed for having a sticker on their car. People just do not want to say anything."