Trump Demoted Brad Parscale After Reportedly Getting Spooked By Fox News Polls — and a Warning From Tucker Carlson
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A raft of reports have pointed to different blunders, mounting rapidly in recent months, to finally prompt President Donald Trump to demote his campaign manager Brad Parscale.
The Wall Street Journal reported Trump was concerned by a Lincoln Project ad that emphasized the lifestyle Parscale’s work on the Trump campaign has paid for (that includes a Ferrari and a sizable boat). The Washington Post reported the disastrous and under-attended Tulsa rally was “broadly blamed” on Parscale.
This bit of reporting from Axios is a little more revealing: “A recent spate of Fox News polls particularly infuriated Trump.”
Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Fox News polls in recent weeks. Not because they are out of line with what other pollsters are finding — they are not — but probably because they air on the network he watches all day.
Trump is losing badly to Biden in most of the national polls. But in one particularly tough state-by-state matchup conducted by Fox News at the end of June, Trump was down to Biden in four key states he won in 2016: Florida, Georgia, Texas, and North Carolina.
“The @FoxNews Polls are a JOKE!” Trump wrote on Twitter a few days later.
Another piece of reporting from the Axios story: Trump still brings up a Tucker Carlson segment from June in which the Fox News host said he “could well lose” in November if he doesn’t right the ship. Carlson, who became the most watched cable news host in history this year, is also one of the president’s favorites.
As far as the campaign shakeup goes, it’s not just Parscale, the digital marketing wunderkind of Trump’s 2016 victory who will remain with the campaign as a senior adviser. ABC News reporter Will Steakin listed a series of changes implemented following the Tulsa rally:
Some big Trump campaign changes all since Tulsa rally debacle:
—Brad Parscale demoted (had been CM since FEB 2018)
—Stepien elevated to CM
—COO Michael Glassner reassigned
—Jeff DeWit brought in as new COO
—Max Miller in to run advance (Peede back to WH)
—Gidley new press sec— Will Steakin (@wsteaks) July 16, 2020
This is all an indication that despite rosy pronouncements, Trump knows he’s losing. But there should be some skepticism regarding the notion that any campaign manager is the cause of the president’s 2020 woes. His plunging poll numbers are more likely tied to the administration’s handling of the raging coronavirus pandemic and a stalled economy than Parscale’s taste for large boats.
