I know what you’re talking about. I recall back when Bush 41 ran against Clinton. The “official” pronouncements before the election had the economy appearing like it was in the toilet. However, two weeks after the election I was in deer stand in a cornfield in northwest Indiana about a mile from a rail road. That rail line ran non-stop Saturday & Sunday, and I thought it was awfully busy for being such a bad economy. The business decisions that had those trains running had been made weeks or months earlier. The following week the Commerce Department “revised” their figures. Upward. Radically. I had no doubt they torpedoed Bush.
They really WANT to hold off the official announcement, but there are too many private entities out there doing forecasts and making pronouncements. Economists in various banks, think-tanks and academia will let the cat out of the bag. I think this is so bad, and the timing will be so far ahead of the election that they can’t keep a lid on it.