THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN FIRES THE WRONG PEOPLE

The Trump campaign has fired some pollsters:

President Trump’s campaign is cutting ties with three members of his polling team after grim numbers showing him trailing former vice president Joe Biden in several battleground states were leaked to the media last week....

Days ahead of Trump’s official launch of his reelection bid on Tuesday, the campaign is severing its relationship with Brett Loyd, Mike Baselice and Adam Geller while keeping pollsters Tony Fabrizio and John McLaughlin.

I believe what 2016 Trump campaign aide A.J. Delgado says:

Funny bc they think the leak came from the pollsters and not, as it did, from ppl on Campaign calls and in the Campaign's orbit. https://t.co/EebrCZRJww

— A.J. Delgado (@AJDelgado13) June 16, 2019

That's very plausible. It makes sense that the numbers came from someone tied to the campaign who wants Trump to understand that he'll have a hard time getting reelected.

The press reports seem careful not to say that the leaked polling data came from the pollsters. Here's a Washington Post story that ascribed the leaks to "Trumpworld":

Trumpworld is trying to wave a red flag in front of the president to warn him that his 2020 reelection battle is going to be a tougher fight than he's willing to acknowledge. That's why, people close to the campaign said, that unflattering internal poll numbers leaked about matchups with Joe Biden and other Democratic contenders in key states.

... campaign sources speculated the bleak poll numbers were leaked for a purpose: to send a wake up call to Trump about his poor standing.

"2020 will be exponentially more difficult than 2016 and everyone needs to realize that,” the source close to the campaign explained.

The message is clearly not one Trump has been receptive to....

Two of the three fired pollsters aren't going very far:

Baselice and Geller are expected to begin working instead with America First, the pro-Trump super PAC, the source said. Lloyd is not expected to continue working with any Trump-affiliated entities.

So with the possible exception of Lloyd, Trumpworld (apart from Trump himself) clearly isn't all that upset with the pollsters.

As for the surviving pollsters, I can see why McLaughlin, at least, is staying on:

Pollster: Trump on Course to Win in 2020

During Sunday’s “The Cats Roundtable” on New York 970 AM radio, President Donald Trump pollster John McLaughlin commented on the president’s chances in 2020.

McLaughlin told host John Catsimatidis that Trump is “on his way to reelection” in 2020 despite polls showing otherwise because pollsters “don’t know how to analyze” Trump voters.

“The polls, when they’re not done well, and they’re done as cheaply and inefficiently as they were done back in 2016, they’re going to be wrong again,” McLaughlin predicted. “They’re doubling down on poor science at the time. And they don’t know how to analyze these Trump voters because they don’t like talking to the media because they know the media is like 90% negative coverage of their president.”

He later added, “I truly believe the president is on his way to reelection.”

That's how you stay in Trump's good graces: flatter him like he's Kim Jong Un, and bash the media while you're at it. Meanwhile, we don't know who really leaked the poll numbers, but it's clear that the boss doesn't want to hear the message.