Trump, it seems, is paying close attention to the polls coming out on the 2024 race for president, in which he is so far the only major candidate among Republicans.
So far, polling paints a mixed picture of the current status of the race, although potential challenger Ron DeSantis, who is currently the governor of Florida, has not announced a campaign. Morning Consult found Trump leading, and Echelon Insights showed DeSantis beating Trump by five percent with just those two listed. (Both polls were conducted nationally.)
“For all of my many supporters, and the number is higher than ever before, I am pleased to report that “our” Poll numbers are Excellent,” Trump claimed Sunday on Truth Social. “Polls are important, but many have proven to be so corrupt, wrong, or incompetent in the past, especially, those of ABC FAKE NEWS/WASHINGTON COMPOST; FOX FAKE NEWS; and NBC FAKE NEWS/GLOBALIST STREET JOURNAL, that they have become somewhat meaningless, just a political weapon. CNN Polls no longer matter in that so few people are watching CNN (and MSDNC) anymore!”
The reality, of course, is that Trump lost by millions of votes in two elections in a row, eking out a victory the first time because the map of wins in individual states gave Trump an edge. He continues, though, also claiming he was the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election, no matter the huge lack of evidence reasonably supporting his notions. In Arizona, Kari Lake — the Republican who lost in last year’s race for governor — is challenging her defeat in court even still, but no sudden surge of evidence has been recorded there, either. The Arizona state Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to take up Lake’s challenges before further proceedings at a lower level.
Trump also spoke Sunday about claims from a defense official that balloons originating with China and seemingly believed to be used in espionage also flew across portions of the U.S. in the Trump era. The revelation, of course, undercuts the tough guy-persona Trump and Republicans tried to project in response to the Chinese balloon that recently traversed portions of the U.S. and Canada. They clamored for the Biden administration to shoot it down, which the military eventually did once over water. Belligerent demands from Republicans for the military to have done so earlier ignored the extremely basic danger of falling debris injuring someone on the ground.
“The Chinese Balloon situation is a disgrace, just like the Afghanistan horror show, and everything else surrounding the grossly incompetent Biden Administration,” Trump dubiously claimed Sunday, also on Truth Social. “They are only good at cheating in elections, and disinformation — and now they are putting out that a Balloon was put up by China during the Trump Administration, in order to take the “heat” off the slow moving Biden fools. China had too much respect for “TRUMP” for this to have happened, and it NEVER did. JUST FAKE DISINFORMATION!”
