He’s out there touring around and doing rallies all over the place.
Yeah, I’m not really sure about that. He does have his handlers that constantly feed him good information, but I also think that he gets bad news at times regardless. I do get reports of him looking dejected, or throwing tantrums, and so on. I mean, look at his rants on Truth Social now and then. Some of the bad news has got to filter through.
I do agree though that I’m sure he rationalizes things when he gets bad news, but evidence does suggest that he’s not constantly living in a self-affirming delusion all of the time.
I don’t think Trump plans on winning the election by getting the most votes. He is planning to win it other ways; by screwing with the vote results to his benefit using loyalists who will refuse to certify some elections or will negate the results that aren’t favorable to him. If some states do this, there may not be enough electoral votes for either candidate, and it will be thrown in the House of Representatives, where he has a majority.
No. That’s not how it works. You need a majority of certified electors to win. If the number of certified electors go down, so does the number you need to have that majority. It only goes to the House for a contingency vote if enough votes go to a third party candidate that neither the Republican or Democrat end up with a majority due to a three (or more) way split, or if it ends up being an exact tie between the two candidates. This misinformation seems to come up constantly and has been corrected many times.
There’s even an entire thread in P&E inspire by this misinformation.
The 1864 election was the clearest example. The states in rebellion didn’t hold elections, but that didn’t mean it went to the House. Lincoln got a majority of the electoral votes cast, and was re-elected President.
Having some states not certify their results could still swing it to him, just via a different mechanism.
Even if he sees a poll that says he’s winning 60-40, that upsets him, because he thinks he should be winning with 90+% of the vote.
If Trump supporters in a blue state control certification boards (say, in rural areas), and they refuse to certify their district, could that delay the entire certification process for the state, to the point their electoral votes don’t count?
This. Except I’d put ego first.
I remember Trump’s face when it became clear he had won in 2016. He didn’t look pleased, he seemed resigned to his fate. I think it would be the same again.
The only things he likes about the job are what he’s already doing – the rallies and the grift.
But he doesn’t want to do either of these things as a loser.
He’s actually not doing a whole lot of rallies lately. In the month of August, he did seven; to date, he’s only held four in the month of September, with two more scheduled so far.
By comparison, in the 2020 campaign, he held fifteen in-person rallies in September, despite it being in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic; in 2016, he held twenty-one rallies in September.
Source: Wikipedia
2024 Rallies
2020 Rallies
2016 Rallies
But back then he wasn’t as old, wasn’t quite as badly mentally deranged, and wasn’t getting shot at.
The rallies seem pretty pointless, anyway. The reason people might come to normal political rallies is to get to know the candidate better. Does anyone imagine that one single person has ever come to one of these Trump rallies who isn’t already a devoted sycophant? Trump isn’t doing these rallies to win over voters, he’s doing them because he’s a pathological narcissist. If anyone doubts that this is literally true, yesterday, September 18, in Uniondale, NY, a state that Trump will surely lose, he said the following (direct quote) “Nobody can draw crowds like me… I’m the greatest of all time”. The man is a psychopath.
The exact tie is what I think people are worried about with the Nebraska shenanigans. I guess a number of models have Harris getting exactly 270 EV under the curent system, but Nebraska going all-or-nothing makes it a tie. It’s one thing to worry about, I suppose, but I of course the Harris campaign’s goal is to surpass 270, not just hit the bare minimum. It would be great to see the face of the GOP governor of that state if he pushes this through and then watches her take enough votes elsewhere that it didn’t even matter.
I wonder if this isn’t resulting in some rallies not happening. The Secret Service might well have nixed a few.
Possibly, but he wasn’t even doing many rallies (comparatively) before the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on July 13th. He held three rallies in May, and six in June. By comparison, in 2016*, he held thirteen rallies in May, and twelve in June.
*- 2020 is a difficult comparison, due to the impact of COVID on public gatherings: he held no rallies after March 2 (i.e., when COVID first became an issue) until June 20; after two rallies in late June, he didn’t hold another one until mid-August.
I don’t think he really wanted to win in 2016 but after having people suck up to him “like nothing we’ve ever seen before”, I’m pretty sure he really wants it this time.
I buy that, both because he’s a habitual cheater and that involves someone else than him having to do the actual work. His fundamental dishonesty and his laziness would push him towards that course of action.
It’s also how he dodges accountability.
His primary motivation is staying out of jail.
Trump says 2024 is his last run so if he loses, no campaign for 2028. I don’t know if I believe this but perhaps Trump knows something about his health that he’s not ready to admit yet.
USA Today story via Yahoo News: