On Tuesday morning, President Trump lied about the role his endorsement has played in the Republican primary election to fill Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ old seat in the U.S. Senate.
Trump has endorsed the establishment candidate, Luther Strange. As polls open for the Republican primary on Tuesday, Strange is far behind disgraced former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, who has made headlines in recent days for comments he made during media appearances calling for homosexuality to be a criminal offense.
Three new polls in #ALSen all have Moore up big over Strange.
– @cygnal: Moore +11
– @trafalgar_group: Moore +16
– @Be0ptimus: Moore +11— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) September 25, 2017
Strange, a more mainstream Republican, has the support of Senate Republican leadership and Trump.
The president traveled to Alabama last Friday and appeared with Strange at a rally. He’d like you to believe his public embrace of Strange has had a major impact. On Tuesday, Trump claimed that Strange “has been shooting up in the Alabama polls since my endorsement.”
Luther Strange has been shooting up in the Alabama polls since my endorsement. Finish the job – vote today for "Big Luther."
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2017
But that’s not true. In fact, the latest polling shows that if anything, Trump’s endorsement of Strange has had the opposite impact. As HotAir detailed on Monday evening:
On Friday, the day of Trump’s Alabama rally for Strange, Moore led the race by 8.6 points in the RCP average. Today he leads by 10 points even.
As The Hill reports, a new poll by Cygnal, an Alabama-based polling group, and L2, a data firm, shows that “Trump’s endorsement of Strange has not shown much of an effect on the race.”
“Of those surveyed, 31 percent said Trump’s backing makes them vote for [Roy] Strange, while 29.5 percent said it makes them vote for Moore,” The Hill notes. “Just over 37 percent, however, said the endorsement has not had any effect on them.”
While Trump has established a reputation for lying about big things — consider his lies about former President Obama’s birth certificate or his baseless claims about how voter fraud cost him the popular vote — his tweet on Tuesday is the latest example of how he’s destroyed his credibility with incessant fibs about little things, too.
The president’s claim about the impact his endorsement has had on the Alabama race wasn’t the only lie he told on Twitter on Tuesday — he also lied about NFL ratings.
Ratings for NFL football are way down except before game starts, when people tune in to see whether or not our country will be disrespected!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2017
With the inclusion of MNF, overnight ratings for Week 3 Sun-Mon NFL games finish up +3% in aggregate.
— Michael Mulvihill (@mulvihill79) September 26, 2017
Polling conducted in late July showed Trump enjoying one of his strongest approval ratings in Alabama, at 55 percent. His approval ratings nationally currently hovers around 40 percent.