Apparently, the Trump campaign is firing its pollsters after internal numbers from March leaked to the press that showed the president being slaughtered by Joe Biden. I’m not at all certain that the pollsters are responsible for the leak, but they definitely were the ones who brought Trump bad news. So, “off with their heads.”

The campaign’s spin on these numbers has been kind of hilarious but they did make at least two decent points. First, the numbers are not fresh; they’re three months old. Second, the surveys were taken prior to the issuance of the Mueller Report. Nonetheless, they did show Trump in big trouble, losing to Biden even in Ohio, Georgia and North Carolina, and ahead in Texas by only two points.

Letting those numbers stand unanswered is not a great option for the president because if congressional Republicans take them as gospel they will start to panic and seek some distance from the White House.  Trump tried simply denying that the polls exist, but that tactic quickly proved inoperable.  So, trust them, things have improved since March.

Separately, Fox News is out with new polling of the Democratic contest, and it also has good news for Joe Biden.

Biden tops the list of Democratic contenders with 32 percent support among primary voters. Bernie Sanders trails at 13 percent, Elizabeth Warren at 9 percent, and Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris both at 8 percent. Next is Beto O’Rourke at 4 percent, Cory Booker at 3 percent, and Amy Klobuchar and Andrew Yang each garner 2 percent.  Julian Castro, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Tim Ryan receive 1 percent a piece.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE POLL RESULTS

Since March, Sanders is down 10 points, while Buttigieg (+7), Warren (+5), and Biden (+1) have gained ground.

They also tested head-to-head matchups with Trump:

Biden and Sanders are ahead beyond the margin of error, and 2016 taught us that the margin of error is pretty damn important with these polls. Still, all the top Democrats are leading Trump and the fact that this is a Fox News poll makes it harder to spin as fake news.

What seems most consistent in the polling is Trump’s inability to break out of the low-forties against anyone, be they white, black, male, female, straight, gay, coastal or midwestern.  All that seems to change is the size of the undecided vote.  Against Bernie Sanders, only 11 percent have no opinion, while against Buttigieg that number swells to 19 percent.  This indicates the Democrats’ ideology is less important than their name recognition, although in Warren’s case it could indicate higher negatives, perhaps as fallout from the whole “Pocahontas” thing.

People will argue what they want to argue from these numbers. Some will say that anyone can beat Trump, so why not go with your heart. Others will say that only two candidates have what might be considered a safe lead, and why take needless risks.  In truth, there is too much time and too much campaigning ahead to draw any firm conclusions, but it’s safe to say that Trump is in bad shape. Not much has moved Republican support away from the president, but polls showing that Trump is going to lose to all comers and isn’t even a lock to win Texas have the potential to shake some things loose.

He’s firing his pollsters and the replacements probably won’t be stupid enough to give him real numbers. He’s not paying them for real numbers. He wants to be told what he wants to hear.  Then he can leak the “good” internal numbers and change the narrative.