Slumping Trump poll numbers grow into a Twitter hashtag
Donald Trump's latest poll numbers have become a hashtag on Twitter and a new flashpoint for his supporters and detractors. Also: a day earlier, he attacks Clinton with Ms. Pac-Man.
- Finalist for the Nesta Tipping Point prize and a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Donald Trump has fueled his candidacy for US president with his nearly constant and often controversial stream of tweets, but now some hashtaggers are turning against him. "Trump 32%" is a trending topic and nascent meme on Twitter on Thursday, following new polls that show him trailing Hillary Clinton 47 percent to 32 percent in New Hampshire and 41 percent to 32 percent in Michigan.
That's a big dip for Trump compared with similar polls earlier in the year that had him within just a few points of Clinton.
Certain corners of Twitter immediately jumped on the opportunity to troll Trump.
It was also a prime opportunity to poke a little fun at one of the most common misspellings in the Trump-Twittersphere.
The internet being the internet, there was also plenty of room for conspiracy theories early on when "Trump 32%" first started trending:
And some Trump supporters seem to also be conspiring to somehow organize another "secret" 32 percent of the voting public.
For his part, Trump has yet to respond to the new poll numbers or the Twitter response to them. But prior to their release Wednesday, his campaign continued to make an issue of the controversy surrounding Clinton's private email server and missing emails tied to her time as secretary of state.
On his Facebook account, Trump shared a Ms. Pac-Man mock-up featuring a Clinton avatar that roams around avoiding FBI "ghosts" and gobbling up email icons.
"Crooked Hillary is a lot like Ms. Pac-Man," read the post on Trump's account. "She'll keep going and going and going until she's cornered and caught!"