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Trump completely invents a fake poll to make himself look good

Disinformation in its purest form.

Donald Trump at a rally in Charleston, West Virginia on August 21, 2018. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Donald Trump at a rally in Charleston, West Virginia on August 21, 2018. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump — perhaps feeling some heat in the lead-up to the midterm elections, in which his party is expecting heavy losses — told a pretty desperate lie Sunday.

One problem: There’s no such poll.

A Fox News spokesperson told TPM the president may have been referring to a Rasmussen poll that showed approval among black voters was high. The White House didn’t return TPM’s request for comment.

But even Rasmussen’s numbers are iffy. Michael Tester, associate professor of political science at the University of California at Irvine, wrote in the Washington Post that “polling firms that have interviewed far more African Americans, and that are much more transparent than Rasmussen, all show that Trump’s black approval rating is much lower than 36 percent.”

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More reliable polls, including Gallup, Ipsos/Reuters, and YouGov/Economist show his approval rating in that demographic is likely closer to 10 to 15 percent. Quinnipiac puts it at just nine percent.

This isn’t a president who lets facts stand in the way of a good tweet — especially before a midterm election that should have his party feeling nervous.