ABC News threatens to dump Trump’s favorite pollster over alleged Steve Bannon ties

One of the top conservative pollsters has announced they are on the verge of no longer being included in ABC's FiveThirtyEight polling aggregations over questions about their methodology and questionable ties to rightwing outlets and bloggers.

Late Thursday, pollster Rasmussen Reports, long a favorite of Donald Trump for its pro-conservative leanings, published an email from Elliott Morris, Editorial Director of Data Analytics at ABC News, asking for detailed information on how they arrive at their polling results as well as questions over whether they cater their results in return for favorable coverage.

On the Rasmussen website they published what they claimed was the complete email from Morris, who warned, "I am emailing you to send a final notice that FiveThirtyEight is considering formally banning Rasmussen Reports from its coverage. Such a ban would result in being removed from listing on our main polls page and being excluded from all of our aggregation and election forecasting models. If banned, Rasmussen Reports would also be removed from our historical averages of polls and from our pollster ratings. Your surveys would no longer appear in reporting and we would write an article explaining our reasons for the ban."

Notable in the email, outside of questions about how their polling is conducted were questions about their relationship with pro-Trump extremist Steve Bannon, Fox News and "right-wing blogs."

"First, Rasmussen must explain the nature of its relationship with several right-leaning blogs and online media outlets, which have given us reason to doubt the ethical operation of the polling firm. please tell us whether questions are ever suggested to Rasmussen from these outlets, including Fox News and 'Steve Bannon's War Room', where Rasmussen's head pollster regularly appears, with the promise of coverage in return for 'public' fieldwork?" he wrote. "Do Rasmussen's pollsters work with anyone from these organizations on topics to consider polling, despite listing polls as un-sponsored or sponsored by other groups? Does the pollster have a close personal relationship with any of these figures that might cloud their judgement in the operation of a public poll?"

Added to that, ABC questioned the polling company over their stance on Trump's election loss in Arizona in 2020.

"Related to this, does Rasmussen Reports believe the results of the 2022 Arizona Governor election, as certified by the state's department of elections, to be fraudulent based on the results of a 2023 survey conducted by Rasmussen reports and sponsored by College Republicans, as it stated for Mr Bannon on his programming in April of this year?" the email continued. "Does Rasmussen Reports believe its polls can provide more precise estimates of election results than certified ballot counts by states' secretaries of state? Does it believe the results of the 2020 election as certified are accurate? What does it view its role as in providing public opinion data on this topic? "

The email, which was sent on June 29, concluded, "Failure to reply, or failure to notify us of an intent to speedily reply, by the end of the day on Friday, June 30th, 2023 will be taken as a final concession of our grounds for a ban. The ban would take effect imminently thereafter."

You can read the whole text here.