Trump Campaign to Purge Pollsters After Leak of Dismal Results – The New York Times

In addition to Ms. Conway’s former firm, the Trump adviser said the campaign would cut ties with Adam Geller, a pollster for former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, and Michael Baselice, a pollster for former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, both late additions to Mr. Trump’s campaign in 2016.

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NBC News first reported the decision to oust the pollsters, although it did not identify which ones. Two other pollsters, Tony Fabrizio and John McLaughlin, will remain with the campaign. Mr. Fabrizio conducted the March survey for Mr. Trump. As a pollster, he worked for Mr. Trump’s company many years ago, but he was brought into the 2016 campaign by Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, who was one of the people charged by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. Mr. McLaughlin has known Mr. Trump for years and did informal work for him in 2011 when the real estate developer was considering running for president.

Mr. Fabrizio and Ms. Conway declined to comment. Mr. McLaughlin and the other pollsters did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has angrily denied receiving polls showing him losing or instructing aides to deny them. “Those polls don’t exist,” Mr. Trump told ABC News in an interview broadcast on Thursday. “I just had a meeting with somebody that’s a pollster and I’m winning everywhere, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But on Friday, ABC reported specific information from that supposedly fake polling. The data obtained by ABC showed Mr. Biden leading Mr. Trump 55 percent to 39 percent in Pennsylvania, 51 percent to 41 percent in Wisconsin and by seven points in Florida. The president was leading in Texas, a bulwark for Republican presidential candidates for four decades, by just two points.

When approached by the network with the numbers, Mr. Parscale confirmed that they were accurate, but dismissed them as outdated, insisting that the president’s public standing had subsequently been helped by Attorney General William P. Barr’s initial characterization of the special counsel’s report. A redacted version of Mr. Mueller’s report has since been released, showing that it was not as favorable as Mr. Barr suggested.