Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, April 18, 2023
Establishment Republicans along with assorted RINOs and anti-Trumpers have latched on to a poll which shows Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis beating Joe Biden in two key battleground states in a potential 2024 matchup while former President Donald Trump trails the installed incumbent in those states.
According to a McClatchy report, the poll of 500 registered voters in Arizona and Pennsylvania, conducted from April 11 through April 13 by GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies, found DeSantis leading Biden 48% to 42% in Arizona while Trump gets 42% to Biden’s 46%. In Pennsylvania, DeSantis led Biden, 45-42, while Trump trailed, 45-44.
The problem with the poll, besides its small sample size of 500, “is the so-called ‘pollster’ and its relationship with leading Trump antagonists such as Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Karl Rove, and even billionaire progressive George Soros,” The National Pulse reported on Monday.
Public Opinion Strategies “appears to be part of a wider conglomerate known as ‘GP3’. The firm is almost entirely staffed by ‘Republican in Name Only’ (RINO) hardliners, including its founders Neil Newhouse, Bill McInturff, and Glen Bolger,” the report said.
“The firm was part of the Bush-Cheney ’04 polling team,” their own documents suggest, adding that they worked on John McCain’s losing effort against Barack Obama in 2008. Newhouse did polling work for Jeb Bush’s failed 2016 campaign against Donald Trump, and was the lead pollster for Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign failure.
“More recently, the firm has been reliant on Karl Rove’s ‘American Crossroads’ organization, as well as Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund, and even Ronna McDaniel’s Republican National Committee to pay the bills,” the National Pulse noted.
One of the top GP3 partners, Phil Cox, “serves on the Board of the Senate Leadership Fund and WinRed, the GOP’s small-dollar fundraising platform,” raising a serious conflict of interest when you consider that Cox is named as a “senior advisor” to DeSantis for his gubernatorial campaigns.
Another GP3 partner – Rich Beeson – “served as the Political Director for Romney for President in 2011-2012 and as the Deputy Campaign Manager for Marco Rubio for President in 2015-2016.”
The Public Opinion Strategies/GP3 leadership “has been less than shy about their feelings about Donald Trump, and more than happy to hype Florida governor Ron DeSantis, raising serious questions about the ethics of their polling, as well as McClatchy’s release of the information as a news story without declaring the motivations and interests – let alone the cross tab data – from the uniparty pollster,” the National Pulse noted.
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