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Trump Goon Issues Dark Warning About MAGA Election Hopes

A Trump loyalist who secretly worked at the Pentagon hints she could crush Republican morale.

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Umit Bektas/REUTERS

A prominent Donald Trump ally who secretly worked inside the Pentagon has revealed she is withholding midterm election data because it is just too gruesome for GOP supporters to stomach.

Jennica Pounds, the influential data analyst behind the X account DataRepublican, secretly held a position under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—while flooding X with pro-Hegseth posts—before announcing her resignation on Oct. 2, saying she intended to focus on helping Trump in the Nov. 3 midterms.

But with voters heading to the polls next week, Pounds has admitted she is worried that sharing her election forecasts will kill GOP spirits, while warning Republicans to prepare for bruising results.

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“I’ve been asked about early voting analysis. The dilemma I have is that my platform is big enough such that being too blunt can have an effect on morale,” she wrote in a Sunday X post that had attracted 1.9 million views at the time of publication.

Her most alarming warning concerned Texas, a traditional Republican stronghold, where GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton is struggling to fight off insurgent Democrat candidate James Talarico.

“Even TX is going to be a fight,” warned Pounds, who has a million followers, and urged Republicans to bring friends to vote and prepare themselves for the results.

Her concerns come after Associated Press analysis found early voting in Texas had ballooned compared with the same stage of the 2022 midterms, although turnout figures alone do not establish which party stands to benefit.

Jennica Pounds is refusing to share her election forecasts for fear of upsetting GOP supporters.

Jennica Pounds is refusing to share her election forecasts for fear of upsetting GOP supporters.

X

The Utah-based influencer told her audience that other conservative election analysts were more optimistic than she was, and directed followers to look at alternative forecasts.

Pounds said that while she would quietly continue to publish data about individual states on her website, she would not promote the findings to her X followers. She also disclosed that she would privately give conservative commentator Jeremy Carl her predictions a week before Election Day, so their accuracy could be assessed once the results are in.

Pounds has developed a following while being openly pro-Trump. Earlier this month, following an exchange with Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, she explicitly reaffirmed her loyalty to the president. “I support President Trump,” she declared, urging Americans to “Vote early and vote straight Republican.”

Her election warning comes three weeks after she said she had submitted her resignation from the Pentagon.

pete hegseth

Hegseth sought to influence the public by secretly paying sympathetic prominent social media figures to support his work.

Kylie Cooper/REUTERS

Pounds was appointed a special government employee in July, after previously having access to the building as a credentialed member of Hegseth’s Pentagon press corps. Her media credentials expired in June, and she said she did not renew them.

When announcing her resignation, Pounds said she was still loyal to Hegseth but expressed frustration about the treatment of temporary government staff like her, whose appointments had attracted public scrutiny. “I’m stepping back to focus on my book tour and midterms analysis in the months ahead,” she said.

Her unlikely career inside Trump’s Defense Department became public knowledge in August only after a bizarre confrontation with another administration official, in which Pounds publicly accused State Department Undersecretary Sarah Rogers of trying to trick her into improperly leaking government material.

As the Daily Beast reported at the time, Rogers offered Pounds documents concerning Cuba from the Biden administration, apparently hoping the influencer would publish a story, but Pounds grew suspicious and aired her concerns.

Sara Rogers

Sarah Rogers, who sent Pounds the documents, works for the State Department.

SLBRUKBACHER FPC STATE DEPT/Department of State

Rogers rejected the accusations, explaining that the markings on the documents reflected lawful redactions rather than any attempt to entrap her.

During the ensuing online feud, Pounds was outed as a Pentagon employee, prompting the Defense Department to confirm that she held a government position.

The controversy then mushroomed when it subsequently emerged that other prominent MAGA personalities had also obtained government positions under Hegseth without their roles being publicly revealed.

The Daily Beast has contacted the Pentagon for comment.

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