Donald Trump didn’t fare so well at the first presidential debate against Hillary Clinton, but that seemed to be news to him at a Tuesday night Florida rally. The Republican nominee told his live audience, “I was holding back. I didn’t want to do anything to embarrass her.” He continued to talk up his own performance and bash Clinton by saying, “But she was stuck in the past. For 90 minutes, on issue after issue, Hillary Clinton defended the terrible status quo.” Whereas Trump believed he did an excellent job describing how he’d Make America Great Again by bringing jobs back and making the country safe.
Trump isn’t alone in his thoughts. Many, many people claimed on social media that he beat Clinton. A fake poll that sources to an ABC spoof site will lead to the same conclusion (and put Clinton in 4th place). Trump himself tweeted a screencap of multiple internet polls that declared him a winner by landslide proportions. However, some media sources who are sympathetic to Trump reportedly had difficulty in finding a credible poll to back him up.
As we noted yesterday, CNN/ORC poll showed Trump winning 27% approval from a sampling of debate watchers while Clinton claimed 62%. And several mainstream news sources like the New York Times and Washington Post have been highly critical of Trump’s performance. As have, according to Politico, key Republican insiders. Even users at the white supremacist safe haven site Stormfront held a forum session to make sad faces at their preferred candidate’s bad night. But Trump, who is putting on a brave face, told his rally audience that everything’s coming up gold-plated roses.
