But on closer inspection, that fifth poll raises some suspicions – and some questions about how news organizations should treat polling by Harris X. Billed as an “exclusive” on
The Messenger
website, it
brandishes the name Harris
, once a polling outfit with a respected pedigree. Yet that name is no longer what it was – because Harris X, as the firm now calls itself, is actually a subsidiary of Stagwell, Inc. And Stagwell is owned and controlled by one Mark Penn.
That name may be familiar from Penn’s days as
a political consultant
to Bill and Hillary Clinton, with whom he has long since broken. He is better known now for his connections to No Labels, the dubiously “independent” pseudo-party that is threatening to nominate a presidential ticket on a third line – thus potentially swinging the election to Trump. No Labels is run by Penn’s wife Nancy Jacobson, and No Labels has a cozy arrangement with Penn and Stagwell for polling by Harris X.
As Thomas Byrne Edsall recently
noted i
n the
New York Times
, most elected Democrats and more than a few Republicans now suspect that Jacobson and Penn – who has cultivated Trump assiduously – are operating No Labels as a covert effort to re-elect the former president.
So whenever Harris X polls the presidential race, it confronts a glaring conflict of interest, or perhaps several. Its polls need to show that Biden is weaker than Trump to justify entering the race with a third-line candidate. Never mind that No Labels refuses to disclose its donors – many of whom have been exposed as pro-Trump Republicans – or its candidate selection process.
But these sore points may not faze
The Messenge
r, whose founder and CEO is one James Finkelstein, a
close associate of Trump and Rudy Giuliani
since New York days whose brother Andrew Stein, a failed New York Democratic politician and
convicted tax evader
, was a longtime Trump confidant and adviser. The masthead of
The Messenger
is littered with political editors who formerly worked for such Trumpist outfits as the
New York Post
and the
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
.
Maybe their poll was conducted according to best practices and is on the level. Maybe Mark Penn and Nancy Jacobson and No Labels are on the level too. And maybe not.
