Ron DeSantis supporters were thrilled last week when a poll emerged following the first primary debate showing him bouncing up 7 points in the critical first caucus state of Iowa.
The debate, they argued, had given the Florida governor the type of bump he needed to revive a sagging presidential campaign.
Left largely unsaid: The poll had been commissioned by a nonprofit that had hired DeSantis own polling firm.
Publicly released internal polling isnt new in politics. Campaigns have been releasing or leaking their internal numbers most often as a tool to gin up fundraising for decades. But in the increasingly nationalized 2024 GOP primary, campaigns and allied groups are using the tactic more aggressively than in prior races.
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But among those engaged in the release-internal-data practice, DeSantis team stands out as the most aggressive.
Never Back Down, the deep-pocketed super PAC supporting DeSantis campaign, released internal polling to NBC News as early as March of this year, nearly two months before DeSantis entered the race. The group also shared two of its Iowa surveys with Axios one from before DeSantis May launch and one shortly after.
In June, Citizen Awareness Project, the nonprofit group that released last weeks Iowa poll, commissioned general election polls in three swing states Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania. All showed DeSantis outperforming Trump in hypothetical matchups against President Joe Biden. Like the Iowa poll, these surveys were conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, the firm also working for DeSantis campaign.
The vast majority of dollars spent by campaigns and outside groups on internal polling is not for public consumption its data to drive decisions about where to invest other resources.
The week before the first debate, two surveys commissioned by Never Back Down in Iowa and New Hampshire were posted on the website of the firm run by the groups chief strategist, Jeff Roe.
The polls were buried on Axiom Strategies site in an apparent effort to avoid running afoul of campaign finance laws the prohibit super PACs from coordinating with campaigns and were promptly removed after their existence and results (showing DeSantis trailing Trump by smaller margins than some of the public polling) were reported by The New York Times.
And even at this early stage of the race, big money is being spent on polling. DeSantis didnt officially enter the presidential race until the latter half of May but by the end of June, Never Back Down had already spent nearly $1.5 million on polling.
Ramaswamys campaign has disclosed more than $1 million spent on polling, and the total between the Trump campaign and MAGA Inc. is nearly $855,000.
Of course #2 would be Ramasmarmy.
When internal polls are sometimes the only data available, especially in the early states, does that mean readers should trust them?
The answer is complicated. Public pollsters are graded on their accuracy, but campaign pollsters are hired and fired based on whether their polls correctly reflect the true state of the race on which theyre working.
But the public often doesnt get the full picture with internal polls. The campaign or outside group that commissioned the poll is the one releasing it, and only a small amount of internal polling is ever made public. The motive isnt usually accuracy its affecting the media narrative or convincing donors to open their wallets.
It's an interesting juxtaposition - they want accurate polls or the pollster gets fired but also want bad ones to brag about (or the pollster gets fired?).