New polls in battleground Arizona and Pennsylvania suggest Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — not former President Donald Trump — could prevail in a matchup against President Joe Biden.

But the Public Opinion Strategies (POS) polls again are raising questions about methodology — and the people behind the DeSantis-friendly poll.

In a hypothetical matchup, the poll shows DeSantis with an edge over Biden in both states, and Trump trailing Biden. In Arizona, DeSantis leads Biden 48 percent to 42 percent, while Biden holds a slim 1 percentage point lead (45% to 44%) over the former president. In Pennsylvania, it’s DeSantis by 3 points over Biden (45%-42%), while Biden leads Trump 46 percent to 42 percent.

The numbers are all within the POS poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percent, but the idea being pushed is that DeSantis is more “electable” than Biden in critical election map states.

Some of the numbers behind the poll of 500 registered voters raise some questions, however.

The polling data originally released to McClatchyDC, but the story did not include the background information, including the usual toplines and cross tabs. It also did not include a link to the explanatory data.

Such was the case with a Public Opinion Strategies survey conducted in late March. That poll was obtained by liberal news outlet Axios, showing presumptive GOP presidential candidate DeSantis was leading declared candidate Trump by 8 points (45% to 37%) in a head-to-head matchup in Iowa, which will host the Republican Party’s kick-off caucus early next year. The same polls found Trump and DeSantis tied (39% to 39%) in New Hampshire, the first GOP presidential primary state.

Public Opinion Strategies polls seem an outlier to myriad surveys showing Trump ahead of DeSantis, in many cases by double-digits. The Iowa and New Hampshire polls also didn’t include standard methodology and related data, such as margin of error or sample size information. Nothing on demographics of the respondents, gender, age, what part of the state they’re from, what their political ideology is.

POS did send The Iowa Star some polling information for its Arizona and Pennsylvania polls upon request. What the topline shows is a higher sampling of registered voters identifying as liberals and moderates, and those with college degrees compared to CNN’s 2020 CNN exit polls, for instance. In short, voters much less likely to support Trump.

The former president has long done better among working class voters without college degrees, and among Republicans and conservatives.

As pollster John McLaughlin notes, the Public Opinion Strategies Arizona poll includes fewer working class voters, more Democrats and fewer conservatives than CNN’s 2020 presidential exit surveys. The latter exit poll surveyed 59 percent of respondents with no college degree and 41 percent with degrees, while the POS poll included 55 percent of respondents without college degrees, and 45 percent with. That’s an 8-point difference potentially against Trump.

The same holds for ideology. The CNN Exit poll interviewed 35 percent of respondents who identified as Republican; 26 percent as Democrats. While the POS poll includes a bit more Republicans (37%), it interviewed 7 percent more Democrats (33%) — a negative difference of 5 percentage points. In the ideology mix, the exit poll included 42 percent conservatives, 36 percent moderates, and 22 percent liberals. The POS poll interviewed fewer conservatives (37%), fewer moderates (34%) and more liberals (25%), for an 8 percent negative difference in liberals to conservatives surveyed.

The differences are similar in POS’ Pennsylvania poll, just not as pronounced as Arizona. There are fewer working class voters and conservatives, and more Democrats compared to the 2020 CNN Exit polls. On education, for instance, the POS poll includes more  respondents with a college degree (2 percentage points more), and fewer without a degree (2 percent) — a negative 4 percentage point difference.

Several national polls show Trump leading Biden in a head-to-head contest, including Rasmussen, the Economist/YouGov polls and Harvard Harris, according to RealClearPolitics averages.

McLaughlin & Associates’ polling shows Trump up 4 points on Biden, which McLaughlin says would be a “landslide for Trump.”

“We have never won the national polls,” He said. McLaughlin & Associates is the former president’s polling firm.

The McLaughlin poll of 1,000 likely 2024 voters conducted on March 31 and April 1 — after Trump’s Manhattan indictment — found “Republican primary voters clearly prefer President Trump as their strongest candidate to beat Joe Biden. Republican primary voters say Trump is better positioned to beat Joe Biden at 61% vs. 33% who prefer someone else.”

Trump is ahead of DeSantis by double digits nationally (49.4% to 26.2%), according to national polling averages from FiveThirtyEight.

The McClatchyDC story did not note whether a candidate or a political group was behind the poll. A memo containing the polls obtained by The Iowa Star was sent to the “Citizen Awareness Project.”  The Axios story said Public Opinion Strategies conducted the Iowa and New Hampshire polls for “an outside client (not a candidate or super PAC.)”

Gene Ulm, partner at POS, sent only to The Iowa Star what he was “at liberty to share,” noting the Arizona and Pennsylvania polls were part of “larger surveys on [an] unrelated topic.” The firm did not answer who sought the polling information.

“Public Opinion Strategies (POS) tried desperately for days to try to pitch this fake poll to other outlets. But they refused to disclose their ties to other 2024 candidates and would not release their cross tabs (data),” the Trump War Room account tweeted. “Truly a POS poll.”

McLaughlin said the idea that DeSantis is more “electable” than Trump fails in the face of myriad polls across the country.

“The premise for DeSantis’ campaign has been undermined by Trump’s success,” the pollster said.

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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis” by Ron DeSantis.

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