What did Donald Trump do today?

He lied about his popularity again.

Trump wasn't able to come up with the specifics for the economic recovery plan that he'd promised would be available today. (He made that promise yesterday, after announcing that he'd be taking some kind of action on the cratering stock market—something he apparently forgot to tell his own staff.) But he did find time to tweet about the election.

Specifically, he claimed that "polls"—plural—show "BOTH" Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders losing to him in the general election.

In the real world, only one nationwide poll in the last month has shown Trump beating either candidate: a mid-February poll from Emerson College with Trump over Biden by 4. 17 other polls showed Biden and Sanders beating Trump—by 6.5% in Biden's case, and by 4.9% in Sanders's.

That one outlier was taken before the stock markets plummeted nearly 20% over the last few weeks, and before the reality of Trump's handling of the coronavirus outbreak began to set in with voters.

The most recent two polls, released yesterday, have Biden winning by 7% (Morning Consult), and Biden winning by 9% with Sanders winning by 7% (Quinnipiac).

Going back to the start of 2020, there have been 39 national head-to-head polls in the RealClearPolitics average, with Trump losing to Sanders or Biden in 37 of them.

   

Trump didn't say which "polls" he was reading—which is typical. 

Why should I care about this?

• There are more important things for the President of the United States to worry about in a crisis situation than his personal popularity.

• Lying about how popular you are to make yourself popular doesn't tend to work after about the third grade.