POLL DANCING

Delusional Trump, 80, Makes Up Polling as Disaster Looms

Donald Trump claims his crude comments sent a Republican senator soaring 12 points.

Donald Trump is inventing polling victories for Republicans as his party faces a midterm wipeout, claiming his crude comments about Sen. Jon Husted’s backside sent the Ohio senator’s numbers soaring by 12 points.

At an October 12 rally in Youngstown, Trump described sizing up Husted, a former football coach, after discovering the senator had been an All-American defensive back at the University of Dayton.

He added that the former football coach has a “great a--.”

“I watched up and down. I looked at his a--, and I looked at the whole—and then I looked at his hands,” Trump told supporters.

In a TikTok video posted Wednesday before his rally in Chillicothe, Ohio, Trump praised Husted’s football career again and added that his comments had caused Husted to jump 12 points in the polls.

“I told the people—they didn’t know this—he has a great a--, a very powerful a--. His shoulders, his hands, his arms, and you know what happened? He went up 12 points in the ratings,” Trump said. “Ohio loves strong football players.”

He also offered an even bigger figure during an interview with Fox News.

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“He went up 14 points or something,” Trump said. “And that was my rally. That was when I said the word, the A-word, and everyone said, ‘Oh, why is he talking about that?’”

Conservative columnist Miranda Devine revisited the episode in a Monday New York Post column, after interviewing Trump ahead of the midterms.

“He’s proud of the fact that, after he went to Ohio and praised Senate candidate and former star college football player Jon Husted as handsome with a ‘very powerful a--,’ the Republican’s name recognition soared and women started seeing him in a new light,” she wrote.

But Devine noted that the polling Trump cited did not support his account.

“Trump claimed Husted jumped 12 points in the polls, although the official figures don’t show that,” she wrote.

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A New York Times poll conducted between October 26 and November 1 showed Brown leading Husted by 5 points, with 49 percent to his 44 percent.

A Marist University poll released October 20 had Democrat Sherrod Brown leading Husted 48 percent to 44 percent among likely voters, meaning Brown’s lead has grown since Trump’s remarks.

A Fox News survey conducted October 15–19 put Brown ahead 52 percent to 47 percent.

Husted is among several Republican candidates facing unexpectedly competitive races, including in states that have traditionally voted Republican.

Those battlegrounds, among others, include Texas, Alaska, Kansas and Ohio, where Democrats lead by just a few points but could still help determine whether Republicans retain their grip on Congress.

Analysts expect the GOP to lose the House, but say the Senate is less certain.

It comes amid Trump’s deeply unpopular war in Iran, which has seen prices shoot up, and Trump’s approval rating plummet to a historic low.

Still, Trump claims, without evidence, that the polling is “rigged.”

“I think they’re rigged. I think a lot of pollsters don’t even send pollsters out. I think they collect a big check [and] say they have 1,000 pollsters all over the country, and then they sit back behind the desk . I don’t know anybody that’s ever been polled,” he told Devine.

“Maybe they don’t poll Republicans, but I think we’re gonna do pretty well. I do that based on the rallies. The rallies are as big as they’ve ever been.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

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