Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Max Political polling has long been the purview of independent outfits and news organizations like the New York Times and CBS News. But in recent months, a number of conservative authors critical of JOE BIDEN and his family have paid to sponsor polls of their own. Those polls have been conducted by Rasmussen, a conservative-leaning polling outfit, which, in turn, has meant that their results — on everything from Biden’s approval rating to the generic congressional ballot — have been incorporated into polling aggregators. And there have been a lot of polls. Among those who have sponsored the surveys include MIRANDA DEVINE, who wrote “ Laptop from Hell: Hunter Biden, Big Tech, and the Dirty Secrets the President Tried to Hide.” MATT PALUMBO, author of “ The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros,” has sponsored the Rasmussen daily presidential tracking poll 28 times , including as recently as Tuesday. In addition, JACK POSOBIEC, of “ The Antifa: Stories from Inside the Black Bloc,” sponsored the tracking poll 33 times last summer. Posobiec, who is infamous for peddling conspiracies like Pizzagate, also sponsored the Rasumussen poll twice under his own name in 2020. Several of the sponsors say there is nothing nefarious behind their investment. Instead, they view it as a way to reach those conservatives who follow politics obsessively and an opportunity to promote their work. “It just gets the name of the book out,” said Devine, in an interview with West Wing Playbook. “It’s just publicity. Any publicity is good publicity for the book. Mostly I see Rasmussen on Twitter, so whenever they put out their daily tracking poll, they put ‘Laptop from Hell’ in there.” Devine said she didn’t come up with the sponsorship idea but was pitched to pay for the poll by TED CARROLL, a partner with Rasmussen parent company Noson Lawen Partners. “I have a good relationship with them. They sometimes give me previews of the polls, an early embargo, so I get to break stuff, it’s a symbiotic relationship,” she said. Asked how much she pays to sponsor a poll, she declined “to go into that private business with you.” “Do you think there’s something odd with it?” she added. “Is there something wrong with it? Has someone come to you and told you that there’s something problematic with it? [Is it] inappropriate?” Despite her generally positive perception of the relationship, Devine, who has sponsored a Rasmussen poll 48 times, admitted she doesn’t know if it has actually helped book sales. “I have no insight into that kind of granularity,” she said. “I don’t know that it would have sold many books, it just keeps the name recognition up there.” Still, she is likely to sponsor the poll for a few more months. Posobiec, by contrast, said that sponsoring the poll actually helped his book. He said he enjoyed working with Rasmussen and that the relationship, which started last summer, was “great for book sales.” He said the publisher was “very happy with that and our marketing to the audience.” Rasmussen polls have been criticized for more than a decade for being too favorable to Republicans at the expense of being accurate forecasts. Democrats have long criticized the outfit and a 2018 Associated Press story noted that it stood “alone among frequent pollsters in finding such a high rating for Trump, and its findings are often seen as less reliable because of the automated calling method it uses.” As Democrats recently began to make gains on the generic congressional ballot, Devine’s “Laptop from Hell”-sponsored poll was, for a period of time, the one survey that showed Republicans continuing to lead. Conversely, however, Palumbo’s most recent “The Man Behind the Curtain” poll had Biden’s approval rating at 47 percent, with 52 percent disapproving — one of his best margins in ages. Palumbo, who is the content manager for DAN BONGINO ’s Bongino Report, declined a request for an interview. “I don’t care,” when asked for a comment. Asked for an interview, Carroll said in a text message: “No thanks. Go ahead and publish, you’ve gotten comments from our clients for your silly story. Can’t wait to read it.” PROGRAMMING NOTE: West Wing Playbook will be taking a week-long break starting Monday, Aug. 29. We’ll be back in your inbox on Tuesday, Sept. 6. We hope our absence makes your heart grow fonder. MESSAGE US — Are you JACOB SPREYER, Biden’s new body man? We want to hear from you! And we’ll keep you anonymous if you’d like. Or if you think we missed something in today’s edition, let us know and we may include it tomorrow. Email us at westwingtips@politico.com.
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