As Donald Trump met with voters Tuesday in Iowa’s second-largest city, a new poll found Hawkeye State Republicans aren’t happy about the former president’s recent criticisms of their popular governor.
But the poll, it should be noted, was conducted by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ polling firm — an organization that has failed to provide background information on other positive DeSantis polls.
As first reported Tuesday in the New York Post, 78 percent of likely GOP caucusgoers disagreed with the former president’s jab earlier this month questioning Republican Governor Kim Reynolds’ neutrality in the presidential nomination contest, while only 17 percent agreed with it, according to the survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies.
Trump’s criticisms followed a New York Times report suggesting Reynolds was getting politically cozy with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is running a distant second to Trump in Iowa and national presidential primary polls. Reynolds has maintained she will not endorse any presidential candidate in the lead-up to Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses on January 15. She said she will welcome each of the presidential hopefuls in the crowded GOP field to the state without playing favorites.
The former president, however, thinks the governor has given special treatment to DeSantis, who has said he would consider Reynolds for his running mate.
“I opened up the Governor position for Kim Reynolds, & when she fell behind, I ENDORSED her, did big Rallies, & she won. Now, she wants to remain ‘NEUTRAL.’ I don’t invite her to events! DeSanctus down 45 points!” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week, employing his derisive name for the Florida governor.
Reynolds is very popular with Iowa Republicans. She won all but a handful of Iowa counties, garnering 58 percent of the vote in last year’s election.
But the Trump campaign has questioned the pollster and its motives.
“The Trump campaign has dismissed Public Opinion Strategies’ polling in the past, saying the firm is biased in favor of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis,” the Post reported.
The long-time Republican polling firm has deep ties to DeSantis.
As The Star News Network reported in May, Public Opinion Strategies announced that POS partners Gene Ulm and Robert Blizzard would be working for the DeSantis presidential campaign.
“We are excited to announce that POS Partners Gene Ulm and Robert Blizzard (@robertblizzard) will be supporting and working for Ron DeSantis for President, providing strategic advice and counsel to the campaign,” the firm tweeted.
We are excited to announce that POS Partners Gene Ulm and Robert Blizzard (@robertblizzard) will be supporting and working for Ron DeSantis for President, providing strategic advice and counsel to the campaign.
— POS (@POStrategies) May 25, 2023
As The Star News Network has detailed in a series of stories, POS has released several polls in 2024 presidential battleground states asserting “DeSantis runs better than Trump against Biden.” A poll in Georgia, for instance, found Biden narrowly beating Trump (43 percent to 42 percent), with DeSantis topping Biden (46 percent to 41 percent). The late April survey of 500 Peach State voters, published without question in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, claims DeSantis fared better with “white voters, independent voters, and Senior Citizens — all constituencies a GOP candidate needs to be successful in Georgia”
That was the narrative in Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and other key presidential map states, too, according to memos to the shadowy Citizen Awareness Project.
But the polls have consistently underrepresented traditional Trump voters in the quest to spin DeSantis as more electable than the Republican Party presidential nomination frontrunner.
In its latest poll on Trump and Reynolds, POS told the New York Post that the survey was conducted July 14 through 16 among 400 likely Republican caucusgoers. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
But the story didn’t include basic topline and demographic background information generally provided by pollsters. Ulm did not return The Star News Network’s request for the information. POS officials have not done so for some time. POS had not appeared to post the poll and accompanying details on its website or Twitter account as of late Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the super PAC backing DeSantis launched an ad this week hitting Trump for his flap with Reynolds. Never Back Down reportedly uses an Artificial Intelligence version of Trump’s voice in the television spot.
A source familiar with the ad told German-owned Politico that the commercial buy is priced at at least $1 million. The Supreme PAC also is running the ad via text message and on digital platforms.
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
BULL$HIT