President Donald Trump is a lot like the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wiz as he too doesn’t like bad news:
The difference, of course, is that the Wicked Witch of the West just didn’t want people to bring her bad news; the Wicked Witch of the White House wants his staff to lie about the bad news he’s received.
According to the New York Times, Trump told his underlings, which would be motorcycle henchmen if we are keeping The Wiz theme going, to deny (read, lie about) internal polling that shows him trailing to former Vice President Joe Biden in states where lots of white people live.
The Times notes that when the polling data leaked and showed Trump trailing in key states, the president of the United States told his aides to tell reporters that other data showed him doing better.
The Times reports that the internal polling showed Trump losing in key states he would need to win in order to be reelected.
From the Hill:
Last week, a Quinnipiac University poll found Biden four points ahead of Trump in Texas, a state Democrats haven’t won in the presidential election since 1976.
A different poll released last week found Trump trailing Biden and several other 2020 Democrats in Michigan, a state he narrowly won in 2016.
Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate to win Michigan and Pennsylvania since 1988. He also won Wisconsin, the first time a Republican has taken that state since 1984.
If Trump were to lose those three states in 2020 and the Democratic nominee was to hold the other states carried by Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, Trump would lose the electoral college.
Trump has been consumed with former President Barack Obama’s BFF since he joined the race and automatically became the frontrunner in the crowded Democratic field.
Both Trump and Biden “will both be campaigning on Tuesday in Iowa, which will host the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses early next year,” the Hill reports. And if Trump doesn’t show well he will just ask his aides to lie about it.