Top GOP pollster fired after financial mismanagement allegations

Chris Wilson, the founder and CEO of top Republican polling firm WPA Intelligence, was fired after company audits found he likely used firm money to pay for personal expenses, according to two people directly familiar with the matter.

It comes after his firm’s CFO was fired and charged with embezzlement earlier this year, a charge that she denies. That led people on WPAi’s leadership team to start looking into how Wilson had spent company money, according to the people.

Two outside auditing firms were hired to conduct investigations, and two business consultants were later brought on to restructure the company and restore its profitability, according to the people. Wilson, who has worked on behalf of presidential efforts for Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz, was fired on Dec. 5, according to the people, and is no longer listed on the company’s website.

The audits of the company’s finances found that over the past several years Wilson used firm money to pay for items that were likely for personal expenses, such as vacations, health charges and the use of a nanny, according to five people with direct knowledge of the situation. Wilson at times used WPAi’s money to pay large portions of his personal credit card bill, which he would also use for company business, according to two of the people. The people declined to share the audit with POLITICO.

The people in this story were granted anonymity to disclose sensitive personnel matters.

Ryan Leonard, a lawyer representing Wilson, called the allegations behind Wilson’s firing “defamatory and false.”

“Chris’s former business partners at WPAi at all times had complete transparency into all aspects of the business, including every single business transaction,” he said in a statement. “The timing of these allegations is particularly surprising given that, following completion of a recent audit, Chris was actually given a raise. While Chris recently left the company following the election, he wishes his former team members at WPAi all the best.”

In a text message to POLITICO before he was fired from WPAi, Wilson said he “was confident that my record of ethical leadership and professional achievement speaks for itself.”

“When you run a company, business and personal sometimes become intertwined,” he said, noting that he paid three full paychecks for all WPAi employees at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic out of his personal bank account so that he didn’t have to lay anyone off. (He said he didn’t reimburse himself after.)

WPAi covered some work trips for Wilson’s wife to accompany him because he had a stroke a few years ago and has been advised by a physician not to take overnight trips by himself, according to a person who has worked with Wilson.

A WPAi spokesperson said the firm couldn’t comment on what it called “ongoing litigation” but added in a statement: “[I]t’s clear that Mr. Wilson has not been forthcoming about the circumstances leading to his departure. We are focused on moving forward and are relieved that this challenging chapter is behind us.” The spokesperson declined to comment when asked about the details of the litigation.

A spokesperson for Axiom Strategies, the mega Republican consulting firm owned by Jeff Roe and one of the minority investors in WPAi, declined to comment.

Earlier this year, Wilson used WPAi money to pay an employee of his personal real estate business, Carver Management, to work a full time job for that real estate entity, according to two people familiar with the matter. A document reviewed by POLITICO also shows that the employee in question worked full-time for Carver. WPA also rents its Edmond, Oklahoma, office space from Carver Management, according to local real estate records.

Three of the people directly familiar with the matter said there had been surprise transfers from WPAi to Carver this year. In April, $40,000 was sent from WPAi to Carver, and $20,000 was sent in September, two of the people said. This year, WPAi has paid for Carver’s insurance coverage and building association dues, according to two of the people.

Wilson said that WPAi paid a “highly reduced price per square foot” for rent from his real estate firm and Carver loses money on the space every month. He also said that the employee in question was paid for Carver work by that firm, not by WPAi.

Such expenses have hurt the company’s bottom line in the last year, according to three of the people familiar with the company. Some vendors have not received payments on time, and non-sales staff received their quarterly bonuses late for several quarters and not at all in the second quarter, said one of the people. That left employees angry, the person said, since the bonuses account for a sizable portion of their election-year income.

This past cycle, WPAi, which Wilson founded in 1998, has done work for numerous Republicans, including the Congressional Leadership Fund, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Reps. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) and Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.), according to FEC records.

Wilson’s dismissal comes after his CFO, Catherine Gryder, was fired from WPAi in November 2023 for her own use of company cash, according to two people familiar with the matter. She was fired a few days after her fiancé at the time had come to the firm’s office asking for a check for a painting job he had done for the office even though it didn’t need to be painted, according to one of the people. That raised alarm bells with a WPAi staffer, who then told Wilson about the incident and set off an internal investigation.

Wilson went to the police, and Oklahoma prosecutors charged Gryder in June with one felony count of embezzlement over $1,000. She pleaded not guilty and appeared in court in late November as the case winds its way through the court system, according to court records. An Edmond police report also said that Gryder had admitted to embezzling more than $11,000 from WPAi and Carver “but planned to pay it all back,” and actually did send a $16,000 check to Wilson’s attorney. The incident has not previously been reported.

Gryder’s lawyer declined to comment.

Wilson also declined to comment on specifics of the Gryder case, saying it’s an ongoing criminal matter. In a statement released before his own departure from the firm, he said: “This has been the most challenging experience of my professional career. Throughout this ordeal, I have strived to act in accordance with my faith and uphold my personal integrity. My primary focus has been, and continues to be, shielding our employees and clients from any fallout. I remain unwavering in my commitment to these principles.”

According to the police report, Gryder quietly siphoned off money, spent money on a company owned by her romantic partner and used a WPAi business account to pay for her personal insurance and phone accounts.

“There was a lot of moving money around and trying to hide what she was doing,” said Bill Simmons, who was COO of WPAi at the time and left at the end of August.

This was the second time that Gryder had allegedly done this to a firm owned by Wilson. In 2019, according to the police report, she charged around $17,000 to $18,000 in items from Apple’s music store to a business credit card owned by a firm of Wilson’s.

“Chris, being who he is, tried to work with this person, offer a sense of forgiveness and try to keep moving forward, but the second time was so egregious, there was just no opportunity,” said Simmons. “So once we discovered it, she was fired immediately.”

Gryder’s sparse LinkedIn profile, which still carries her maiden name Catie Ross, calls herself a “Christian. Mom. Wife. Aunt” and says she is an “experienced accountant with a demonstrated history of working in the accounting industry.”

Two decades ago, Wilson was fired by his polling firm’s then-parent company Qorvis and sued for allegedly “stealing corporate secrets and cash while plotting to launch a competing firm,” accusations that he denied, in a case that was eventually settled. Wilson was also sued in 2021 by his ex-wife, who claimed he had continued to improperly use a data software platform to collect voter data that she had gotten in the divorce.

Wilson is disputing the allegations in court and Leonard, his lawyer, said “the lawsuit has no bearing” in facts.